Hi all and Yvonne

The following is just one of the reports that came in on TEXBIRDS after
Hurricane Brett. It was the most thorough.

Roger Craik
Maple Ridge BC
rcraik at home.com

After a brief break, hurricane evacuation, I am back offshore working on
the Migration Over the Gulf Project for Louisiana State University's
Museum of Natural Science. I am stationed on Matagorda Island 622C an
offshore gas production platform, 12 miles South of Port O'Conner Texas.
I was able to bird the Corpus Christi area with Alan before
and after the passage of Hurricane Bret. While we did not find any live
displaced pelagics we did find some interesting birds on Mustang Island
and Padre Island National Seashore. I will start with live birds we saw
on 23 August. The first day after the passage of the storm, it rained
most of the day. We saw a Bell's Vireo and a Rufous/Allen's Hummingbird
in Bluecher Park in Corpus. The beach from Bob Hall pier S to the no
driving zone of Padre Island National Seashore (PINS) was nearly devoid
of Gulls and Terns. There were quite a few normal beach shorebirds and
almost no debris on the beach.
The 24th would be a different story, gulls and terns returned and there
was a greater variety and number of shorebirds, most interesting were
more than 30 Red Knots. There was an impressive line of debris, organic
and inorganic, on the beach. I quickly lost track of the live birds but
made an effort to list all dead birds from Bob Hall Pier S to 4.3 miles
into PINS excluding the No Drive Section. This is about 11 miles of
beach. S of Bob Hall Pier we found an exhausted Pied-billed Grebe. This
was the only bird we found all day that looked ill. In this 11 mile
stretch we made an effort to count and identify all whole dead birds, the
tally was 583 DEAD BIRDS. We didn't count the innumerable wings, tails
and piles of feathers we found every time we got out of the car to
investigate a dead bird. This event undoubtedly killed thousands upon
thousands of birds, mostly transgulf migrants, during its passage.
During the course of the day on the 24th we drove most of Mustang Is and
15 mile into PINS. Live birds at Packery Channel County Park on the 24th
included; Olive-sided Fly 1, Yellow Warbler 4, Red-eyed Vireo 4,
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2, Black-billed Cuckoo 1, Louisiana Waterthrush 1,
Ovenbird 1, Eastern Kingbird 5, Painted Bunting 2, White-eyed Vireo 1,
Belted Kingfisher 1.

DEAD BIRDS FOUND on
11 miles of beach from Bob Hall Pier S to 4.3 miles into PINS excluding
the no driving section

CORY'S SHEARWATER 6
STORM-PETREL SP 1 (possibly Leach's, specimen saved)
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron 4
Green Heron 4
Tricolored Heron 3
Little Blue Heron 7
Cattle Egret 10
Snowy Egret 2
Great Egret 1
Egret sp 1
Heron sp 4
White Ibis 4 imm, 1 ad
Duck sp 2
Blue-winged Teal 30
Osprey 2
Sora 2
Purple Gallinule 5 imm, 2 ad
American Avocet 2
Black-necked Stilt 1
Willet 4
Greater Yellowlegs 1
Long-billed Curlew 1
Sanderling 1
Upland Sandpiper 1
Wilson's Phalarope 1
Sandpiper sp 3
Laughing Gull 3
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 6
Chuck-Will's-Widow 2
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
Olive-sided Flycatcher 1
Great Crested Flycatcher 1
Eastern Kingbird 2
Red-eyed Vireo 1
PURPLE MARTIN **292**
Cliff/Cave Swallow 1
Barn Swallow 7
Swallow sp 17
Kentucky Warbler 1
American Redstart 2
Orchard Oriole 1
Icterid sp 1
Unidentified Passerine **119**
Unidentified Bird 17

Total 41 species 583 individuals. This tally did not included numerous
wings tails and piles of feathers. The unidentified Passerines included
numerous warblers and Empidonax flycatchers and larger flycatchers.
Outside of our exhaustive search area on Mustang Island North of Bob Hall
Pier we found 4 dead Cory's Shearwater's for a total of 10 for the day.
On PINS we found a dead Brown Pelican and Roseate Spoonbill. Neither of
these species turned up on our exhaustive search.

Keep checking the beaches for goodies! Last fall I found a rotten Sooty
Tern on the Upper Texas Coast ten days after Frances that was banded in
June of 1974 in Florida's Dry Tortugas!