=====================+=============+================ Species | Number | Birds per mile ---------------------+-------------+---------------- Great Blue Heron | 9 | 0.5 Oyster-catcher | 1 | 0.1 Black-bellied Plover | 20 | 1.2 Wilson Plover | 53 | 3.1 Willet | 43 | 2.5 Sanderling | 55 | 3.2 Laughing Gull | 136 | 8.0 Black Tern | 19 | 1.1 Caspian Tern | 82 | 4.8 Least Tern | 221 | 13.0 Royal Tern | 301 | 17.7 Cabot Tern | 122 | 7.2 +-------------+---------------- | Total: 1062 | Total: 62.4 ---------------------+-------------+---------------- [Footnote A: Common Tern, Forster Tern, and Long-billed Curlew also seen but not counted.] [Footnote B: Between 56 and 73 miles south of Washington Beach, 11:00 to 11:45 a. m., July 10, 1961.] =_Pelecanus erythrorhynchus_= Gmelin: American White Pelican.--A flock of approximately 300 individuals was seen resting at the edge of the Laguna Madre near Camp 2 on July 9. When disturbed by gunshots, the birds circled high over the laguna and flew to the west. Among bones found on sand flats at Camp 1 are a left tarsometatarsus and a pedal phalanx of an American White Pelican. Supposedly the only breeding colony of this species on the northern Gulf coast is one in the Laguna Madre near Corpus Christi (Peterson, 1960:8), but the possibility of one or more such colonies existing in northeastern Tamaulipas has been suggested by Amadon and Eckelberry (1955:68) on the basis of their observations of individuals seen soaring near the coast 15 to 20 miles south of Brownsville on April 15 and June 5, 1952. According to Hildebrand (1958:153, and personal communication, August 14, 1961), small colonies of white pelicans do breed in some years on two small islands, in the Laguna Madre of Tamaulipas, located at 25° 26´ North and 93° 30´ West. In Veracruz the species is recorded as a winter visitant and transient (Loetscher, 1952:22; Amadon and Eckelberry, 1955:68). Coffey (1960:289) reports the following observations for Veracruz and Tamaulipas: a flock of 52 between Tlacotalpan and Alvarado, May 29, 1951; 80 near Cacaliloa, April 20, 1958; 180 birds north of Alvarado, April 24, 1958; four at Altamira, May 28, 1955; flocks of three, 13, and 37 "south" of Matamoros, May 20, 1951; 72 at Lomas del Real, November 20, 1956.