Am I blue?

Friday, November 9th, John's field trip left at 5 AM again, back to the Upper Rio Grande Valley. No Red-Billed Pigeon or Muscovy Duck, but some nice pictures of birds John has already seen. He is still at 672 for his big year, 706 for his life bird list and 611 plus decent photos of bird species taken this year. Not bad for an old geezer who is blind in one eye and mostly deaf.

I had signed up for Birding by Ear but didn't want to go to Santa Ana two days in a row, so managed to switch to Southmost Preserve in Eastern Brownsville. Anyone can go there if they call ahead to the manager to arrange a visit. We got to go behind the border fence. It is anything but a solid barrier. There are gaps at every road. The smugglers are funneled right past the preserve's headquarters. Not good. The preserve has lots of Sabal Palms and a working grapefruit ranch that brings in revenue. The border fence displaced about three hundred palms during construction. The Southmost Preserve successfully transplanted about half of them. Other preserves got the rest of those palms.

The preserve has a spider web of dirt roads. You definitely will need a map! We didn't see much, but had a wealth of warblers, Yellow-Throated, Nashville, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow-Rumped, Orange-Crowned, Wilson's and Black-and-White, PLUS, a leader spotted a heavier, skulky warbler. I got on it too and we saw a bright split eye ring! MacGillivray's! The other leader, Derek, finally saw it too. That's pretty far east for a western warbler.

Derek has lead field trips during the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival for all of it's twenty years. It may be the oldest festival in the USA. It is certainly well run.

We didn't fly to Miami. We decided to stay overnight and try Santa Ana on our own in the morning. We ate at Longhorn Cattle Co BBQ and Steakhouse Friday night. Nice! Saturday, November 10th, we got to Santa Ana at 8 AM. We spent about two hours on the tower, Harris's Hawks, Peregrine Falcon, Red-Tailed, Kestrels, Vultures and Crested Caracaras flew by. One hawk was dipping into the trees for several minutes, flying about 50 feet into the wind, then dipping into the trees again. It had two bright white bars on its tail so I got hopeful it might be the Hook-Billed Kite. Never mind, the book says it has two DULL white bars on its tail. Grump.

We climbed down from the tower to go to Pintail Lakes where the HBK had been seen 5 days before. There was a lot of activity in the bushes around the little parking lot at the tower. I could hear White-Eyed Vireos and drifted right to follow them while John stayed in the corner. Right in front of me, a Blue-Headed Vireo appeared. JOHN! JOHN! I spluttered. He got over to me too late. Argh! Not another glimpse, though we searched the area another hour. John will have to get it elsewhere. I'm so blue! We did get nice looks at a Beardless Tyrannulet. What a drab little bird. Cute call. We never did get over to Pintail Lakes, but the kite wasn't seen there anyway.

We drove to Austin Saturday afternoon. Sunday, John changed his flight so that he would fly out of Austin to Philly, Monday, instead of Miami to Philly, Tuesday. The car rental agency showed that all cars were booked, but at the counter, John did get one. He drove to Connecticut because the Motel 6's in New Jersey were not available. Probably, Sandy, the big storm, is the culprit. I need to verify that John's pelagic on the 17th is still a go.

Hi, Edna!

The dark before the dawn

The festival field trips start before the sun comes up. John's bus left at 5 AM, mine at 6 AM, Thursday, November 8th. It is very dark when you start out and then comes the dawn. John wanted a picture of the White-Collared Seedeater so he went on the seedeater tour. They arrived up in Zapata county at La Laja and were greeted by the owner. There was a lot of staring into weedy patches and some good views of the seedeaters, but John did not get any pictures. They had lunch at the Rio Grande overlook in San Ignacio and spent some time at a county park, then headed back to Harlingen.

I went to Santa Ana. Many of the other participants were getting life birds left and right. That was fun. I did get great looks at Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs feeding next to each other. Least Grebes are always special. I even saw a Beardless Tyrannulet briefly. We watched for the Hook-Billed Kite from the towers. No luck. I would not have wanted to see that bird anyway. If I had, I would have HAD to find it for John.

Somehow, getting off the bus the day before, I left my binoculars behind! I didn't realize it until we got to our car and the bus was gone. Dark panic! The bus company closed before the festival people got a message to them. I checked with the information center this morning and they had not heard from the bus company. John let me take his 8's. He would use only his 18 power image-stabilized ones. Nice of him. After I got back from my tour at noon, I asked again. No news. The festival had lots of booths, several were optics companies, so I spent some time looking at replacements. About 2 they called me and said the bus company had finally called them back and had my binoculars! Dawn! A very nice festival volunteer was downtown and picked them up. I got them about 2:30, walked across to the park, lay down on the grass and rested for a half hour.

Then it was time for Bill Clark's lecture about Neotropical Hawks. After that was over, John had returned. There was a cool demonstration of birds of prey flying around the vendors' hall, some delicious snacks and a glass of wine. You should come to the festival!

We went to La Playa to eat. Yummy! Back to our room by 7 PM. John decide we would stay one more night instead of leaving right after our tours tomorrow. I think that means he will not go to Miami before he flies to Philadelphia.