Following this we drove another half hour south to see the uncommon for WA Snowy Egret at the end of the dike road in Vancouver, along with lots of Sandhill Cranes.
The weekend was uneventful, but Monday and Tuesday Blair Bernsen came to Tacoma to bird with Bruce LaBar and me, and we added about 10 birds to Blair’s Pierce County life list, and generally had a good time together. YOu can read about day one of this time on his blog Blair Birding. Fortuitously Bill Tweit called me to bail on speaking to ABC on Tuesday night on Monday (an emergency business trip) and Blair overheard the call. He graciously volunteered to come back on Tuesday to give the talk he had planned to give in March.
Thursday was a busy day for me with Rotary, a doctor’s appt and driving to LAke Forest Park to see Marian and stay for a memorial today.
Today I took a birding walk and added Pine Siskin to my King County life list, a paltry #151 for KINGCO.
Tomorrow Ken, Bruce and I head east to the Okanogan area for our annual Freezathon. More on that to follow.
Good birding. Good day!
Author: birdbanter
TBBP Episode #49 Home from Texas Notes
I believe in the podcast I called this bird a Red-breasted Becard at times, it’s Red-throated. Anyway a cool bird.
To read a more detailed trip list with photos check out the trip report on our birding club website ABC Birding. Also here for the time with Ken and Bruce. You’ll find several more posts on the Ed’s Birding tab on the birdbanter.com site.
I’ll keep this brief as it is well documented in the links above.
Good birding. Good day.
The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #48 with Mary Guatafson Notes
Mary is a top national birder, and has lived in the Lower RGV for about 15 years. She has been a trip guide here, has a long resume as an ornithologist working around the country and abroad, and was really fun to meet and talk with today.
Mary runs the listserv for the Lower Rio Grande Valley birding area, a nice resource for birders in this area.
She mentions that she worked at the National Bird Banding Center, and here is a link to their website.
She mentions Peter Pyle’s two tome book used by bird banders and museum curators for bird ID, aging, etc. Here is a link to that on amazon. This is part 1, part 2 is easy to find also.
Here is the web site for the National Butterfly Center.
Be sure to check out BirdBanter.com blog for more info, photos, etc.
Follow @birdbanter on Facebook and @birdbanter on twitter. My error on the podcast, I changed my twitter handle from @dredpullen to @birdbanter.
Good birding. Good day!
Continuing to Explore the Lower RGV
Over the last few days I’ve continued to explore the area. On Friday Jan 31 I headed first to the National Butterfly Center where I met with Mary Gustafson to meet here and to record a podcast episode. This should be published on Thursday Feb 6th if all goes as expected. Mary is a top valley birder, a long-time ABA and Mexico birder who is the eBird reviewer for this area, a guide for birders in the valley and elsewhere, and just a really enjoyable person to talk with. She has been very active in recruiting more diverse trip leaders for the Lower Rio Grande Bird Festival each fall, and we finished our recording she showed me the McCall’s race of Eastern Screech Owl roosting in the picnic pilapa cover rafters.
From there I headed north and west to Mile 7 Road, and area Mary suggested as good for sparrows and dry land birds. It was fairly quiet there, but I got to see some new life roads.
The next day I headed early to Santa Ana NWR, where I walked around a bit before joining the bird-walk leaders for their 4-hour tour. My primary goal was to get them to show me the Eastern Screech Owl roost holes, and that was good to know, along with the exact location of the Paraque day roost near the tower. This info should help with the ABC birders coming down Wednesday.
After that I went to Estero Llano Grande primarily to study hummingbirds for a while. I learned just enough to realize it is really difficult to tell Ruby-throated from Black-chinned non-male birds apart. It prompted me to buy the Peterson Hummingbird guide at the office there to study more.
I took a break in late afternoon to get my phone battery changed.
Yesterday Ryan Rodriguez, from Episode #47, joined me on a chase to Reseca de las Palmas in Brownsville where a Rose-throated Becard had been seen, and a Dusky-capped Flycatcher seen and heard the two days prior. No luck there, but nice to get to bird with Ryan. We followed that with a dash to Boca Chica to look for seabirds, waterfowl, shorebirds, etc. Really much less birdy than when Ken, Bruce and I were there last week.
Then I live-streamed the Superbowl and took a break late in the day.
Today an easy day. I slept in, stopped by a couple of local spots including the Roselawn Cemetery, Tom’s Pond, and the McAllen Nature Center. Audubon’s Oriole at the nature center was nice, though the look again brief and no photo. This oriole seems to be a skulker, hiding a lot in dense brush.
Tonight Marian flys back down after attending to family issues, and the group may show up a day early due to expected flight delays from weather in Dallas on the 5th. We will see.
I’m excited for everyone to get here and do the group trip.
Good birding. Good day!
Birding the Valley without my Birding Buddies
Ken and Bruce headed home after a great visit, and since then the pace of birding has definitely slowed, though I am getting out every day. Marian came down to visit arriving the evening after the boys left, but her visit was cut short by a family emergency, and she had to head home after just a couple of days.
She did manage to get out with me to Anzalduas County Park on the first AM after her arrival. We headed to the dam, hoping for the Rock Wren, with no luck. After a nice time birding the park, having lunch, and walking around we dropped back by the dam area. Marian asked me what the Rock Wren would look like, and I told her a small grayish-brown bird probably perched on one of the rocks. She looked up and asked, “Like that one?”, pointing to the highest rock nearest the dam. I looked, seeing a Rock Wren, and said, “Yes, exactly like that!” Tick. Texas live bird #299. What is going to be #300? My hope is either Northern Beardless Tyrannulet or Common Black Hawk, though Solitary Sandpiper is in the running. I really hope it is a vagrant ABA lifer!
Well, after the day at Anzalduas she got the call from her family, and we got her on an AM flight the next day.
That day, yesterday, I headed for S. Padre Island, where I scouted the area to see if it is worth a trip with the group, and enjoyed studying winter terns. It is amazing the differences in the many plumages of Forester’s Terns, some seem to have dark above outer wing tips, many very white like I’m used to at home.
Today John Heaney reached out and I joined him at Laguna Point in Willacy County, and added two trip birds to the list, American Pipit and later at the San Juan Wetlands, Indigo Bunting.
I continue to study Spanish as much as I can tolerate, though progress is painfully slow.
Me gusta ir a buscar los pájaros todos dias. Mi favorito pájaro en Texas esta mes es el Fork-tailed Flycatcher, pero el Falcón Aplomado es mucho buenos también.
The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #47 with Ryan and Victor Rodriguez Additional Info
My guest Ryan Rodriguez, 12-year old birder from McAllen, Texas, was a joy to meet and talk with. His Dad Victor sat in as the proud Dad, watching his son perform like a pro.
Check out Ryan’s eBird Profile to see his local accomplishments.
Here is a link to the World Birding Center Quinta Mazatlan Site that Ryan haunts as a birder.
The LRGV is a special place to ABA birders. So far in just the brief visit I’ve had here I’ve seen many species that would be difficult if not impossible to find elsewhere in the ABA area.
A Lower RGV specialty, seen all over, heard nearly constantly calling its name. [/caption]
These are just a few of the easy ones here.
Add the vagrant Fork-tailed Flycatcher that has been hanging out since before I got here, Clay-colored Thrush, Bronzed Cowbird, and you go a long ways to building your list here.
Ryan is in an opportune place to meet and see visiting birders as well as the LRGV specialty birds.
Good Birding. Good Day!
The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #46 from South Texas with Ken and Bruce Notes
What a great gift to have been able to spend 9 days birding the lower Rio Grande River Valley with Ken Brown and Bruce LaBar. They are great birders, fun guys, and we had a blast. I’m sad to have them leave, but needing a bit of a rest, and looking forward to exploring the valley over the next 3 weeks. I am also looking forward to having a group of Tacoma area birders join me from Feb 5-12 for an ABC Birding Club trip afar.
We talked about the World Birding Center and the 9 sites they have developed into a network of birding destinations along the lower Rio Grande. The system is spectacular, very well run, and a great addition to ABA birding. Check out their web site, and the site for each of the 9 locations.
We mentioned that local and visiting birders have been extremely gracious. On local birder, I’ll leave him unnamed as I didn’t ask his permission to mention him online, has a fabulous backyard birding setup. His home is on the edge of a local housing area, and he and his wife have developed the backyard into a birder’s heaven. They have water elements, dripping water, suet, sugar water, fruit and seed feeders, great cover. This combines to draw in spectacular numbers of birds. This is where Bruce and we got the Audubon’s Oriole.
John Heaney met us several times along our journeys, several looking for the Fork-tailed Flycatcher, which eluded him for a while before he got it after several tries. John was extremely friendly and welcoming, and introduced me to a 12-year old local birder who if all goes well will be the guest on the next episode. I’ll again leave him unnamed until I get formal permission to talk about him by name.
Here are some photos from our day at the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands. It may seem pretentious to use scenic in the name of a spot, but in this case it is understatement.
We didn’t mention that at Anzalduas County Park we got to see a Sprague’s Pipit in the grassy field. It was really cool to walk the fields and find these secretive birds poking around in the grass.
We also didn’t talk about chiggers. Chiggers are a tiny insect that if you walk in tall grass or brush can get on your clothing, and move around until they get into a tight spot, and then burrow under your skin, causing a terribly itchy rash. We have all had chiggers in the past, though mine minimal, and so avoiding chiggers was a big effort. It looks like Bruce git 3 tiny bites on his legs, and Ken was thinking he might have a bite on his buttock on the drive to the airport. If you come, avoid tall grass, and try to keep chiggers from getting onto your skin.
We also discussed the welcome wall. Here is a photo of the wall, and here is a link to a story about the National Butterfly Center fight to keep the wall out of their preserve.
Here is a link to my flickr site for photos from our time birding together.
Stay tuned to see if I can get my youngest to date top birder as my next guest. I’m looking forward to that and the rest of my time here in McAllen.
Good birding. Good day!
Last Full Day with the Boys in the Valley
Today Ken, Bruce and I went exploring. We headed north on Hwy 281 to see what we could find on Brushline Road and at La Sal del Rey (translates The Salt of the King) NWR. We got to Brushline Road about 7:50 AM and the birds were just getting active. It was pretty much as billed, with lots of Sparrows, mostly Lark and Savannah, with a few Vesper, along with Common Ground Dove, and scads of Red-winged Blackbirds, and a nice variety of dry land species.
La Sal Del Rey, a hypersaline pond which has been used for millennia as a source of salt for aboriginal peoples, the Confederate Army, and who knows who else. It was not terribly birdy, with 3 Snowy Plover, about 28 Least Sandpipers, 4 Ring-billed Gulls, and a few birds on the walk in and out.
A stop at Delta Lake was good for all 3 species of Kingfisher, ducks and a soaring flock of vultures. I think, but am not sure, that I picked a Zone-tailed Kite out of the flock, but no one else could get onto is, so it goes unidentified.
Our afternoon was spent at one of my favorites spots of the trip. The Westlaco Scenic Wetlands is one of 9 WBC sites, and was very birdy, with about 50 species, including several warbler species and a very black-backed Lesser Goldfinch.
Northern Parula[/caption]
A great dinner at the Palenque Grill, home to clean up, and I twisted arms into a brief Bird Banter podcast episode recording. Stay tuned to hear from tres amigos about the trip.
Winding Down Birding-with-Buddies Time in the Valley
Ken, Bruce and I had another good day today, taking it a bit easier, with a lot less driving than most prior days. We started at Anzalduas County Park again, trying without luck for the Rock Wren that has been seen there, but finding a Merlin in the farmland just outside the park.
We next went to the National Butterfly Center. I have heard that half of the butterflies seen in the U.S. can be seen in the lower Rio Grande Valley, and this place is set up for attracting them, with gardens and feeding areas. It is good for birding too, and we looked for, and only Ken saw, a Field Sparrow. We did see a nice Gray Hawk, and enjoyed the place.
To read more about this issue and the fight the National Butterfly Center is putting up, check out this article.
Next was the Hidalgo Pump House Park, the location of the steam powered pumping station that helped irrigate the entire county in years past. It is now a museum, and has good birding habitat. We saw Anhinga, Tropical Kingbird, Eastern Phoebe, Vermilion Flycatcher, and more.
Next it was time for a sit, so we went to the feeders at Santa Ana NWR, where after an hour or so of looking I finally spotted a Hooded Oriole high in a snag, to add to our trip list. This is usually a spring and summer visitor here.
We finished trying to get the Egyptian Goose that has been hanging out at a local city park, as Bruce needs this for his ABA list (probably not listable here though) but were surprised it was not there. NEarly every imaginable exotic waterfowl was there though, and we got our first trip Ferruginous Whistling Ducks.
Grocery shopping, and early quitting time, and now about to head out for dinner.
One more full day tomorrow then the boys head home Saturday.
Good birding.
Aplomado Falcon Today and More
Here are the best I could do for photos.
The rest of the day was leisurely, as we went up to the Laguna Atascosa NWR, and worked our way home looking for seawatch sites in Port Isabella, then the blackbird spectacle at the Granary and the Llano River overlook in Westlaco, and finally at a nature center in McAllen.
Best birds of the day after the falcon were Redhead and Canvasback ducks, Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Bufflehead, white-form Little Blue Heron, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Clay-colored Thrush and Gray Hawk.
Tomorrow a local day near McAllen.