Wednesday 27 April 2011

Texas: Clapper Rail and friends

One of the more memorable moments on the trip came at Yacht Basin Road, near Rollover Pass and High Island – this area of cordgrass and saltmarsh channels is a notable site for Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrows, and also for Clapper Rails. Normally the latter species is pretty elusive and skulking… but we found a very obliging bird that showed superbly!

clapper_rail5

Starting to venture out away from the cover of its favoured creek…

clapper_rail2

Nearing the edge of the track…

clapper_rail3

…carefully considering whether it’s safe to cross…

clapper_rail4

And having completely ignored the presence of three photographers and their rapidly-firing motor-drives, off he goes (like the clappers, perhaps?)

clapper_rail1

And finally, back into cover on the other side.

But the interests of variety, here’s a few shots of some related species:

sora

Sora Rail – we saw quite a few of these at various sites. This one was parading around in the open near the South Padre Island Birding Center

american_coot

American Coot – one of the commonest waterbirds

gallinule

But conversely, we were surprised to only see just this one American Purple Gallinule on the trip – at Anahuac, near High Island. Pretty smart bird, though – quite how anyone can mistake it for a Moorhen is beyond me!

moorhen

And finally, what appears to be another common bird: a Moorhen, right? Well, maybe not for long: this American subspecies is likely to become Common Gallinule in future, having been mooted as a likely split by the ‘Sound Approach to Birding' and Martin Garner amongst others. Note the shape of the top of the frontal shield (squared off on American birds); although we didn’t hear any, they apparently also have clearly different vocalisations. So, an ‘armchair tick’ in waiting…

No comments: