I’ve been in the LRGV now for almost 2 weeks, and am starting to feel like I can find my way around. I am also starting to meet some of the local birders, and today was able to meet with Mary Gustafson. I learned that Mary and I have at least one thing in common. Ken Brown was helpful to us in our earlier birding days. When Mary was at UPS Ken often took her out locally birding.

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!