Author: Rick Wright

Mid-April is a wonderful time indeed here on the Gulf coast, with bright, cool mornings followed by bright, warm afternoons. And birds, lots and lots of birds.

I’d decided to devote our last day of scouting (already?!) to firming up our impressions of some of the sites that had earned a place on the itinerary for next year’s VENT tour to Alabama. We started on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, stopping at D’Olive Park to look for marsh birds; two common gallinules were our reward, the first of this scouting trip.

We would have seen more had I been less impatient to return to Village Point Preserve, in Daphne. Things started off with a bang—or rather, a series of slurred whistles—when a Swainson warbler began to sing just below the parking lot, presumably the same individual we’d heard on our first visit a few days ago. White-eyed vireos, gray catbirds, and great crested flycatchers seemed to be everywhere; a flock of some 700 tree swallows was resting on the beach, and a swamp sparrow fed quietly on the sand at the edge of the phragmites.

With the temperature rising into the high 60s, our quick visits to a few sites in Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge weren’t overly productive. Good encouragement was provided, though, by the birds at the oddly named Tacky Jack’s, a bayside restaurant near Fort Morgan. Green, little blue, and great blue herons fished the waters beneath us as we enjoyed our food; the adjoining yard was a feeding spot for blue grosbeaks and house finches. Among the many royal terns loafing on the jetty were a few Caspian, Forster, and sandwich terns, and of course there were brown pelicans and laughing gulls aplenty—a shame that their abundance makes it so easy to overlook the dramatic beauty of these conspicuous and easily watched birds.

Fort Morgan is just a few minutes farther down the road. Blue grosbeaks dominated the fields and lawns here, too, but they were overshadowed by the first (and only) scissor-tailed flycatcher we would find, hunting patiently on the ground on the sloping lawns of the ancient fortress. The woods at the ferry slip were fairly quiet, but an eastern bluebird, a summer tanager, and a palm warbler added a bit of color; two swamp sparrows, in conjunction with the Daphne bird from earlier in the day, were a clear sign that that species, too, was on the move.

The afternoon got lovelier and lovelier, with temperatures in the 70s and a fine onshore breeze. The white sands of Pelican Point were haunted by least and royal terns, sanderlings and dunlins, and great blue herons; the shores of a small island just offshore were lined by black skimmers. Toward the end of the walk, we found no fewer than five piping plovers darting along the beach. Delightful as they were, none of those birds were unexpected—unlike the reddish egret we found dancing in the shallows. On the way back out, we paused to check one of the small ponds and discovered that two of the noisy clapper rails had actually emerged from their fastness to preen and bathe and generally stomp around on the mud.

Our last stop of the day, was a final brief visit to Shell Mounds. It was getting on to suppertime, so more birders were leaving than arriving, but the birding continued to be exciting, and a bit wistful for us, as this would be the last stop of the entire trip. The orange feeders attracted orchard and Baltimore orioles and indigo buntings, and yellow-throated warblers and scarlet tanagers foraged on the roadside. And the white-eyed vireos we had with us always.

Fittingly, John had booked us at Hummingbird Way for our last dinner together. Quite a dinner: we started with oysters, crab soup, and biscuits, followed by macaroni and cheese, red snapper, crab cakes, and the entire suite of desserts, my favorite the pineapple upside down cake but none anything short of delectable.

And so it came to an end. But we’ll be back in exactly a year! Give Greg a call and come along in April 2024 for what is sure to be another spectacular excursion to Alabama’s Gulf Coast.

A glorious morning, bright and cool, and we headed straight to Shell Mounds to greet whatever the nighttime breezes had brought in. The woods were lively, with Kentucky, prothonotary, hooded, yellow-throated, worm-eating, and Tennessee warblers all showing beautifully well to happy eyes. Black-bellied whistling ducks and a solitary sandpiper were quick flyovers, and a couple of yellow-bellied sapsuckers reminded us that more northerly climes still have a lot to look forward to too.

We kept an eye on our own migratory clock, and after a couple of other brief stops, made our way to the ferry terminal for the 35-minute voyage across the mouth of the bay to Fort Morgan. Least terns and piping plovers provided the entertainment as we waited to board, while an immature great black-backed gull was an exciting surprise. The crossing itself was enlivened by several pods of playful dolphins.

Fort Morgan looks every bit as good for migratory birds as Dauphin Island to the west. Cattle egrets, Savannah sparrows, summer and scarlet tanagers, and loads of indigo buntings crowded onto the roadsides. Our destination was the banding station maintained by Alabama Audubon. It was warm, but the net runners brought in a steady flow of indigo buntings, cardinals, and warblers for close-up views.

We returned to the western shore of the bay so John could introduce us to a site I hadn’t thought about, Bellingrath Gardens. On a hill above the Dog and Fowl Rivers, this colorful riot of native and cultivated plants was fairly quiet at mid-day, but we’ll definitely be including a stroll here on our 2024 VENT tour, in hopes of repeating our experiences with fishing herons (poor sunfish!), loud and tame summer tanagers, bald eagles, and pied-billed grebes. The skies were gaining a bit of overcast, but the beds and thickets of Bellingrath were still full of butterflies, too.

We stopped for an early supper, then moved on to one of the more mysterious birding localities in the Mobile area. The “disposal ponds,” whatever those might be in practical application, turned out to be quite attractive to birds, among them a few lingering green-winged teal, a merlin, lots of blue grosbeaks, and a nice smattering of shorebirds, most of them—at fifty each—lesser yellowlegs and dowitchers. The warm light of a glorious late afternoon turned even this industrial moonscape into a beautifully evocative experience.

We’d been watching the tide table all day, and as sunset approached, we resolved to take advantage of the falling tide to the east of Battleship Park. The mudflats revealed were few and relatively distant, but the thousands of terns and gulls were joined by the trip’s first American white pelican, while seven glossy ibis joined the herons in the shallow water. It had been a great day.

Remember that you can always see more details about our stops and the birds encountered there at the eBird trip page.

And another great day is in the books.

It was downright chilly—not quite 50 degrees—when we left Mobile this morning, but the bright skies matched our spirits as we headed east into the Florida Panhandle. Pensacola, a city I’d never seen, proved remarkably attractive, Gulf Breeze even more so. Bob and Lucy (with whom I’d birded in Arizona some years ago) generously opened their home and their feeders to us. And to more than 100 (!) indigo buntings, blue grosbeaks, wood thrushes, brown thrashers, downy woodpeckers, and many other residents and migrants.

Hard as it was to tear ourselves away, other birds awaited us in Blackwater State Forest. It was a gloriously beautiful day, and we dawdled happily along the red dirt roads through the pines, enchanted by pitcher plants, sundews, and orchids in the seepage bogs. A peregrine falcon passed over high and dramatic, while eastern towhees chewinked from the thickets; I got a good look at a total of one, but it was a fine white-eyed male, a very special bird to those of us used to the red-eyed towhees farther north in the species’ range. The stars of the whole glorious show, of course, were the red-cockaded woodpeckers, which eventually gave spectacular eye-level views as they fussed and fed in the trees right next to the road. This is the second-rarest of picids in the US, exceeded in scarcity only by the Arizona woodpecker, and I’m already looking forward to showing them to my companions on next April’s VENT tour, when they will certainly by a highlight for many of us.

We bade a grateful farewell to Lucy and Bob, then stopped for a quick lunch in Milton before moving on to Gulf State Park back on the Alabama side of the line. A lingering common loon was a nice find, as was a marbled godwit sharing the beach with human waders.

Once back in Mobile, we met up with John her at the hotel and headed out to the bay for a lavish seafood meal chez Felix as brown pelicans, royal terns, cattle egrets, and double-crested cormorants looked enviously on. The only thing wrong with the day? Joe has to return to Birmingham early tomorrow morning, so we’ll continue our scouting without his good counsel and good company.

The scouting continues, and I have to say that the Mobile area is quickly becoming one of my favorite spring birding spots. I wasn’t so sure when I got up early this morning to heavy rain, thunder, and lightning—but by the time we reached Village Point Park, the weather had begun to improve and excitement levels rose. It was still raining lightly when Larry met us in the parking lot, but the precipitation ended shortly thereafter, and our walk out to the bay found the clouds scattering until the sky was nearly clear.

We started with two of my favorite birds, the always appealing eastern towhee and a late white-throated sparrow. Warblers were scant on the way out, but on our way back, they included a prothonotary and a very vocal Swainson warbler, both species sure to be of interest to next year’s participants. I’ll admit that my first indigo buntings of the year took my breath away just as much.

We’d decided to defer breakfast in our hurry to take to the field, so stopped in Fairhope to make up for it; a flock of at least 60 cedar waxwings welcomed us in the parking lot, gorging themselves with only slightly less enthusiasm than we showed for our pancakes, omelettes, and biscuits. By now the sky was bright blue, and tempting as it was to linger over just one more cup of coffee, the thought of even more birds got us back out promptly. The Gator Boardwalk lived up to its name with at least two seven- or eight-foot reptiles floating deceptively placid in the water, while big painted-type turtles basked on the logs.

The Weeks Bay NERR could have been a disappointment: the buildings were deserted, the parking lot closed, a tree down on the boardwalk and the nature trail under a couple of feet of water. Three great crested flycatchers, though, rid our minds of any frustration, and a rose-breasted grosbeak was enough to draw a gasp as we watched it at close range in a brush pile. We were due anyway at Five Rivers, where a boat was supposed to be waiting for us at the landing named for William Bartram, whose explorations of Spanish Florida brought him here 250 years ago. The boat canceled, on strength of a decidedly faulty weather forecast, but our wait was enlivened by ospreys, bald eagles, and the first anhingas of our visit so far. Meaher Park, just across the road, made a poor first impression with its ranks of enormous rv’s and campers; the east end of the park, though, turned out to be peaceful and pleasant, and I’m sure it can be very birdy in the right conditions.

The lost boat trip meant that we had time to drop in to Battleship Park, just ten minutes short of our hotel. The park and the eponymous big boat were crowded on a lovely Sunday afternoon—crowded not just with people. The extensive rain pools were obviously irresistible to shorebirds put down by the early morning’s bad weather, among them some 160 short-billed dowitchers (most griseus, with a few apparent hendersoni, too) and a couple of dozen pectoral sandpipers. The adjacent marsh turned up four glossy ibis, a few common yellowthroats, orchard orioles, blue grosbeaks, a tricolored heron, a marsh wren, a black-necked stilt. . . . It’s nice indeed when the day ends as well as it began!

Tomorrow we plan to start with a quick drive to Florida, a state I haven’t birded for some years. Rare woodpeckers are on the menu, and who knows what else spring on the Gulf Coast will bring us. Stay tuned.

And don’t forget that more details are available in the eBird trip report for this outing.