Birding on Grand Isle, Louisiana 2019

Last year we attended the annual Grand Isle Birding Festival and it had been timed just right. The trees were full of the migrating birds. A fall out had just occurred and they were so plentiful that the fruit trees looked like a Christmas tree with the colorful birds. They were all feeding voraciously after surviving their long flight across the Gulf of Mexico.

This year the winds were steady and strong, from the south. It was good news for the birds as they could ride a tail wind across the gulf, rest a bit and then ride the strong south winds express further north. A minor fallout occurred, and we did see quite a few birds, including a Baltimore and an orchard orioles, summer and scarlet tanagers and American redstarts, to name a few.

Our friends Dave and Jane were with us and the day after the festival was over, they got to see a blue grosbeak. It was another new bird on their life list! We had heard of reports of a painted bunting but we missed it and so we pinned our hopes on the next strong cold front.

During migration the birds fly across the Gulf and it normally takes them 18-20 hours to make the trip. They leave at dusk and arrive the next late afternoon, unless they run into a cold front. The cold front shifts the wind to the north and so they must fight the wind or drown. The birds that survive the trip are exhausted and hungry. That’s when a fallout occurs and they stop to feed on the ripe blackberries and mulberries, recovering their strength before continuing their northward migration.

Jane and Dave had left and three days later, the high winds abated, for a while. Renita and I decided to head to Grand Isle State Park. We could no longer drive to the western parking lot as only tent campers are permitted to park there so we parked further away and walked to our favorite mulberry tree. On the way to our favorite spot we spied a yellow headed blackbird. It’s a common bird where we live in Wyoming but rarely seen here. As soon as we got to the tree, we saw two birds that we identified as summer tanagers.

Renita next spotted a rose breasted grosbeak

and an orchard oriole! An indigo bunting flew by before we could get a picture of it and so we stayed put, looking for more colorful birds.

Renita saw a reddish bird back in the tree and I was able to get a shot of it with our canon camera using the 300 mm lens, (I am now taking most of our wildlife photos using manual focus, which was critical).

The wind returned with strength and we walked back to the truck getting a nice image of a little blue heron wading in a small pond along the two-wheel track. Returning to the house, we met my sister Connie who had come over to invite Renita to go shopping with her.

I stayed home and uploaded the images, hoping that they had been recorded and that I would have one or two good ones, (I have been struggling with computer issues and had just lost two days of bird images).

When I got to the reddish bird, I blew it up and noticed something strange, it had a blue head. Being somewhat slow on the uptake I thought a bit before going to the bird book. It was a male painted bunting!

Another image taken below the bird showed a light greenish yellow bird and it was a female painted bunting! I texted the shoppers and Renita lost all interest in the store texting me back that she was returning home and telling me to keep the images up on the computer!

High winds have returned, and we are both impatient to get a good night’s rest and return in the morning to the state park. Hopefully more birds have survived the journey and the trees will look like a decorated Christmas tree. Clear skies