Bloody wind!...TEXAS (14 April)

It being migration season and all, and this being High Island, wind is always a topic of conversation. But today, this was being talked about for all the wrong reasons. A sturdy southerly airflow had birds leaving overnight from yesterday's late mini-flurry, and discouraged others from dropping down in numbers during the afternoon. Our fallback plan when the woods are quiet is of course a trip down the shore to some of the ultimate US shorebirding sites on the Bolivar Peninsula. However, high tides and those wretched winds put paid to these plans, as wind blew in our faces, and very few shorebirds were scattered along the beach compared to normal. Highlights of the morning walk included a brief Merlin darting by, an American Redstart, and a Prothonotary Warbler, appropriately enough around Prothonotary Pond (and another was heard singing in the Tropical Birding Information Center's backyard too). Our lunchtime sojourn along the shore produced a couple of Piping Plovers along Bolivar Flats, while the afternoon at least revealed a handful of new drop-ins with some popular black-and-orange male Baltimore Orioles, a smattering of mulberry-munching Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, my first personal Yellow Warbler of the season, and a nuthatching Yellow-throated Warbler. A few Green Herons taking off from the treetops also betrayed their recent arrival. A closing visit to the drip at HAS Boy Scout Woods produced little activity at all save for this co-operative Gray Catbird.

With a similar situation weather-wise I worry for the 'morrow, although even during the last few slow days we have continued to enjoy a bounce in birds following clear afternoon drop ins later in the day, relieving us of the relative pain of the morning walks...we shall see!