Drive, drive, drive

So Thursday AM back past Salinino to Falcon Dam State Park. The camp hosts maintain an extensive feeding area. They are plagued by accipiters too. Good views of Olive Sparrows, both Curve-Billed and Long Billed Thrashers, etc and a Roadrunner came up close for handouts. Off to Zapata. Other birders finally located the seedeater along the concrete outlet of the pond in back. We fortified ourselves with lunch PB&J and went back alone. I got a glimpse then we waited and the little tyke hopped up on a vine, grabbed a grass seed head and munched a bit. Too brief for John to get a picture, but at least he saw it.

The guy who discovered the Nutting's Flycatcher in Big Bend was with the other group  and encouraged us to go for it. So now we really DROVE. Ate some HOT stuff at a Stripes about 6 PM and got to Gage Hotel in Marathon about 9. What a cool place that is! Would have liked to stay longer.

Ate at Johnnie B's for breakfast then took off for Big Bend. When you are trying to use a GPS, a highway map, road signs, a NP map and John's recall of directions from the day before you end up going the right way but thinking it is the wrong way and turning around to find out after a few miles it is the right way and turning around to get to the Nutting's Flycatcher spot 15 minutes after it was last seen. BUT it seems the bird makes a big circuit around the scrub and returns after about 2 hours. Luckily, a nice young woman named Heidi showed up and reassured us that she would find the bird. I finally got out lunch fixings and she called out. The flycatcher did just what everyone else said it did, flew openly from perch to perch around the parking lot for about a half hour and then continued its circuit, I guess. We had lunch and left. 

John thought about driving to El Paso, 9 PM again, but we settled for Alpine and stopped at 5. I am glad, we need the rest. Tomorrow the Davis Mountains.