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The Curlew Sandpiper is a small shorebird that nests on the tundra of Arctic Siberia. It is strongly migratory, wintering mainly in Africa, but also in south and southeast Asia and in Australasia. Every now and again one will get blown off course and end up somewhere in North America – usually on the Atlantic seaboard. And even less frequently, one will turn up along the Texas coast.

Fortunately the timing of one being in Corpus Christi coincided perfectly with my trip to Texas. I was primarily concentrating on Houston and the Upper Texas Coast (UTC) but Corpus was just a mere 4 hour drive south. I decided to team up with Bill and Bryan Tarbox and Ellen Baker of Houston and make the chase together.

Upon our arrival to Oso Bay, where it was being seen regularly for the past 10 days, we were astonished to see thousands of shorebirds grouped up together…essentially trying to find a needle in a haystack!

Oso Bay

On top of all this it was 97F and high humidity. We spent an hour in a half looking for the bird with no luck. My friends needed to get back up to Houston before sunset so they wished me luck and bid farewell. I spent another 30 or 40 minutes before I decided to move to another spot to try and get some photos of Wilson’s Plover. Not having much luck with that either I went back to the original spot.

As I approached the group of birds I noticed a slightly larger bird chasing all the Western Sandpipers around. I looked through my camera to get a better look and ‘lo and behold it was the Curlew SP! I took a bunch of photos and noticed a few moments later my friends had texted me asking if I had any luck. I replied, “YES! Got the Curlew Sandpiper!” They responded, “Be right there!” Apparently, they found a pizza place on the way back to the car and were eating lunch…letting me do all the hard work!

The CUSP stuck around for my friends and we all got great looks and photos of the bird. It was quite fascinating to watch how aggressive and territorial it was with the smaller Western Sandpipers. It didn’t seem to mind the Dowitchers or Stilt Sandpipers, however.

Curlew Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper

Curlew Sandpiper (Western SP on left)

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Salton Sea

I spent a lovely Saturday at the Salton Sea with temperatures barely peaking over 100F. I had anticipated much warmer temperatures and was surprised to find it not only being cooler than your typical mid-August day but the pleasant aroma of decaying fish seemed to be missing as well.

Salton Sea

I also noticed the water levels were a bit higher then usual contributing to less beach being exposed which significantly cut down the amount of flies that usually swarm your car whenever you roll down your window or open the door!

Salton Sea

I began the day at Unit 1 located at the extreme SW corner of the sea. Along the dirt road to Unit 1 there were many Burrowing Owls catching some early morning sun including several juvenile Owls as well.

Burrowing Owl

Burrowing Owl (juvenile)

At the ponds, there were many of the usual suspects including American Avocet, Black-necked Stilts, Western Sandpipers, Long-billed Dowitcher and a good number of Stilt Sandpipers!

Stilt Sandpiper

American Avocet

There were a lot of juvenile Black-necked Stilts around that didn’t seem to have learned to be weary of people yet!

Black-necked Stilt

Among the hundreds of Wilson’s Phalaropes I found a lone Red-necked Phalarope couple. The only two I saw all day at the Sea.

Red-necked Phalarope

After leaving Unit 1 I headed north/north east along the coast toward Obsidian Butte. I spotted an Osprey feeding on a fish up in a tree and an adult Peregrine Falcon perched just a couple yards from it not seeming to mind the presence of the Osprey at all.

Osprey

Continuing along the road, I spooked up a Wood Stork that was feeding in a ditch beside the road just South of Obsidian Butte. It flew off into the distance and just as I was losing hope it would come back it circled around and flew into a tree a little ways down the road.

Wood Stork

Wood Stork

See if you can spot the Wood Stork perched up in the trees in the photo below:

Salton Sea

Later on in the afternoon, I met up with some friends at the Red Hill Marina. We started scoping the sandpiper/gull flocks along the old boat ramps. After not finding anything interesting, three peeps flew right by us and landed just a few yards away in the water below. I quickly exclaimed it’s a Semipalmated Sandpiper and not just one, there’s three of them!

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Semipalmated Sandpiper

A quick stop at the north-end of Garst Road didn’t yield much although we did find at least two Large-billed Savannah Sparrows. They were being ultra secretive so I wasn’t able to get any photos of them. Instead I took a picture of the car!

Salton Sea

We decided to head back toward Unit 1 to double check all the areas I covered earlier in the day. We first stopped at the Wood Stork location and found him feeding along the ditch. He quickly spooked and flew back into the same trees I photographed him earlier in.

We continued South to the intersection of Lack/Lindsey Rd. to again scan the Gull and Tern flocks there. Just as we were about to leave I spotted a Common Tern sitting on an old piece of rusted pipe laying in the water.

Common Tern

Not much more that day. Although at the extreme West end of Young Rd. we found a group of about 19 Brant feeding along a irrigation drainage stream. There were also a couple of young birds in the group.

Brant

There were also lots of White-faced Ibis and Cattle Egrets feeding along all the agricultural fields that surround the southern end of the Salton Sea.

White-faced Ibis

Click the image below to see the GPS track logs of where I traveled:

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I took visiting birders, Mark and Kay Clayton, to some of the local hot spots near their hotel at LAX. This was their first time visiting the Americas so they were excited to go just about anywhere. We started off at Del Rey Lagoon and Ballona Creek where they tallied over 25 new birds including Green Heron, Black Turnstone, California Gull, Western Gull, Heermann’s Gull, Western Sandpiper, Willet, Whimbrel, Ruddy Duck, Savannah Sparrow, Great Egret, Snowy Egret and much more. Unfortunately we never saw the Little Blue Heron that has been hanging around Del Rey Lagoon this summer.

Green Heron

Since we were still missing a few key target shorebird specialties we hit Bolsa Chica in Huntington Beach first thing Saturday morning. We immediately ticked off Least Tern, Black Skimmer, Forster’s Tern, Long-billed Curlew, Light-footed Clapper Rail and Osprey.

Light-footed Clapper Rail

Least Terns were in great quantity with adults still feeding the almost fully grown fledglings. I was actually surprised to see adults feeding young birds that had almost lost all juvenal plumage.

Least Tern

Least Tern

After Bolsa Chica we hit the LA River in Long Beach to look for migrating sandpipers. Bumped into Steve and Becky Turley upon our arrival who informed us of a Solitary Sandpiper and Semipalmated Sandpiper along with Chimney Swifts they had seen. It didn’t take long to spot two Chimney Swifts flying over us among all the Cliff Swallows and White-throated Swifts. Also scored a nice immature Cooper’s Hawk chasing a Green Heron around. A few minutes later I found the Solitary Sandpiper just below us on the east side of the river. Other new birds for the Aussie’s included Black-necked Stilt, Canada Goose, American Avocet, Hooded Oriole, Short-billed Dowitcher and Killdeer.

Long-billed Curlew

After a great morning we ended our day at Ken Malloy Harbor Park. Things were a little slow but Ken ticked his 2,000th bird – unfortunately it was a Brewer’s Blackbird! We also picked up Lesser Goldfinch and Black Phoebe. We dipped on any Vireos and Orange-crowned Warbler. However, we did find a pretty neat exotic Saffron Finch:

Saffron Finch

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