DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — A cool front came through earlier this week, and the weather is much more tolerable — now it’s only in the 80s! This morning, with a temperature near 60, I decided to see whether any winter residents had arrived yet.

They have!

• Double-crested Cormorant - 35 in a V headed south
• American Coot - several hundred (numbers have rather suddenly exploded)
• Northern Flicker - 4 (No, flickers don’t generally breed here, but they are common in winter.)
• Ruby-crowned Kinglet - 3 (To see my first kinglet brought a smile.)
• American Pipit - 3 (Only two previous reports in the state this season, but today they were seen in several places.)
• Savannah Sparrow - 7

I still can’t find a Sabine’s Gull at Joe Pool Lake (or much of anything, other than coots), but I did see a flock of about 20 Monk Parakeets fly by. They are well established in the surrounding areas, but I hadn’t seen them from the dam before. With a yellow sea of broomweed behind them, their greens and blues were spectacular.

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — By the time I found my second Sora, I was feeling pretty good. I watched the bird as it walked gingerly along submerged cattail leaves, picking at the duckweed on the surface of the pool. Marsh Wrens and yellowthroats flitted higher in the cattails, offering brief views and snatches of song in the case of the wrens.

By the time I’d seen four Soras and heard a fifth, I was pretty amazed. But I still couldn’t imagine what was to come.

By the time I left Village Creek yesterday afternoon, I had seen 16 Soras and heard two others! Sixteen! They seemed to appear nearly everywhere I looked, sometimes in loose family (?) groups of three to four birds.

I keep dreaming of cool, crisp fall weather, but Dallas is still hot, sticky, and stale. It’s a disappointment I feel every autumn that I spend in Texas. In college, my poem called “Protesto” began with the line, “It’s November, for crying out loud.”

But regardless of the weather, there are subtle signs that it’s autumn. The high number of Soras I observed is likely due to a push of migrants moving through. Coots are starting to return in good numbers — I saw at least a couple hundred yesterday. More Northern Shovelers have joined the flocks of Blue-winged Teal, and the males are starting to get their bright colors back. Yesterday, I had one drake pintail too.

Summer residents like Painted Buntings have either disappeared or become so inconspicuous as not to be noticeable. I haven’t seen one in several weeks. Other breeders — and post-breeding wanderers — are still around. Scissor-tailed Flycatchers and Barn Swallows are still here, of course.

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks remain numerous and conspicuous at Village Creek. Yesterday, one juvenile White Ibis joined about 20 of its White-faced cousins in the grassy edges of the pools. (OK, yes, there could have been a Glossy tossed in there too, but if there was, I sure couldn’t tell. Fall is not the time to be trifling with the dark ibises.)

Shorebirds are still moving through. Most of the water at Village Creek is too deep for shorebirds, but in small patches of habitat I found several species:

• Solitary Sandpiper - 1
• Least Sandpiper - 30-50
• Long-billed Dowitcher (I think. I guess. I’m confident! Err, yes.)
• Wilson’s Snipe - 1 (Gorgeous, orangey plumage. Wow.)
• Killdeer - ubiquitous
• Stilt Sandpiper - 1 (Much easier to identify than sometimes believed.)
• Lesser Yellowlegs - 2 (Killdeer-sized — a handy comparison if Killdeer are present.)
• American Avocet - 8 (Best shorebird ever! Gorgeous.)

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — Before my unsuccessful twitch yesterday, I birded Cedar Ridge Preserve and Village Creek Drying Beds. White-eyed Vireos were plentiful and vocal at Cedar Ridge. Residents included cardinals, Blue Jays, chickadees, and Carolina and Bewick’s wrens. Other migrants were one Great Crested Flycatcher and one Nashville Warbler — a brightly plumaged male even showing hints of an orange crown.

I found the drying beds — a favorite spot when I lived in Arlington two years ago — unlocked and full of birders. Fort Worth Audubon was on a field trip. Water was very high in all the units, so there was practically no shorebird habitat. Egrets littered the fringes of the pools, and a Red-shouldered Hawk flew over, showing off gorgeous plumage.

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks were conspicuous. A pair (or more?) of adults kept flying around and squealing, and a group of about 10 juveniles huddled close together, which made me suspect that a pair had bred here or nearby. I also saw a pair of Mallards, several dozen Blue-winged Teal (some of the earliest migrants), and a single Northern Shoveler. Pied-billed Grebes were also plentiful, and I’d imagine that they breed here too.

As I walked in the general direction of a photographer from the FWAS group, I heard a warbler song. “Yellow?” I wondered. A moment later, the man hailed me and said he was trying to photograph a pair of “Common Yellow Warblers.”

“I heard one singing,” I said.

“That was my phone,” he said.

Oh, how embarrassing. He was trying to lure the birds out into the open for a picture. He kept talking, and I soon realized that the birds he was actually after were Common Yellowthroats, not Yellow Warblers. Perhaps one reason that they hadn’t responded to the cell phone.

After he left, I did get a look at a young male yellowthroat, but I couldn’t find the Sora that the group had seen just before I arrived. And later, I did find a real Yellow Warbler too.

A Swainson’s Hawk joined a kettle of Black Vultures overhead.

Before I left Arlington, I checked out the unit of River Legacy Park on north Cooper, and I found water in the wetland that was dry two years ago. There were Red-shouldered Hawks and Turkey Vultures in the area, but no water birds that I could see. Nearby, however, I found a flooded patch of woodland with several migrants: Wilson’s Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Yellow Warbler, and White-eyed Vireo.

At Tawakoni, I didn’t do much other than look for the Sabine’s Gull and jaeger that had been seen earlier in the day. As I have already related, I was not successful. I did, however, see several Ospreys, one of which plunged into the lake and came up with a fish. There was a distant flock of several dozen American White Pelicans — what a combination of ungainliness and grace!

Of course, I had to make a pilgrimage to the giant spider web that’s been making news and attracting thousands of visitors to the park. The glory days of the phenomenon are over, but it’s still a weird and eerie sight, calling to mind images from the Wizard of Oz or countless other stories. For photos and information about the “happening,” to borrow a term from the arts, see the link above.

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — I birded this morning, and when I got home, there was news. Sabine’s Gull and immature jaeger at Lake Tawakoni State Park. I gulped lunch and hopped back in the car.

It was very uncharacteristic, but it felt so good.

It would have felt even better if I had actually SEEN the birds in question, but neither one made an appearance for me.

Nonetheless, I saw several good birds today. I’ll report on them tomorrow.

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — So, things have been pretty quiet on the blog front lately. Sorry about that. Birders always notice birds — we can’t stop that — but sometimes life prevents us from actively seeking them out. I’ve heard crows through the windows and seen Mourning Doves on the wires, but it’s been awhile since I really went birding. My plans for a birdy Labor Day weekend evaporated for a variety of reasons. The Fan-tailed Warbler is still being seen regularly, along with a host of other awesome species, but my hopes for getting out to Big Bend have pretty well died.

By this afternoon, I’d had it. It was time to bird. So after work, I went. It was a gray evening; there were raindrops in the air.

Rarely have I encountered such a birdless wilderness. Everyone else in the state is reporting great numbers and diversity of warblers, shorebirds, first state records, etc. I, on the other hand, heard a couple of chickadees, a few Carolina Wrens, and a Killdeer. Instead of Buff-breasted Sandpipers, there were crows. Instead of warblers, large grasshoppers.

It’s not that I’m feeling sorry for myself … OK, yeah, I guess that’s it after all. Hmm.