Semi-annual Update

The 2012 review is up at Big Bend Nature.com and that means we're off the hook for more bird/bug updates for this post... right? Guess that leaves the pithy, lifey stuff...

Jan - hey, rare birds ARE life to us; Nutting's Flycatcher was some Herculean feat of masochism in spite of being a life bird for both of us. The bird called twice in something like two hours of our first observation and the call is what we HAD to record for confirmation. No pressure. Awesome bird. Great folks who chased it, as well. Kind of a who's who of birders, or an awkward family reunion.

Feb-May were somewhat nondescript, except when May rolled around we were both laid off from our part time jobs (same place - so there went our 20 hr/week gig, roughly 1/2 of our income, on 5 minutes notice... at the same time I lost my tutoring position due to graduation), but I guess at least we don't have to work at the checkpoint anymore! That was at the beginning of the week of finals and graduation. Not cool. I could have been studying!

Layoffs aside, May was wonderful; Matt's folks came out for my graduation and in the time-honored tradition of shirking rituals, I ate at CowDog instead of walking for graduation. Not quite a trip to the RGV (high school graduation), but CowDog with the best in-laws ever? Remarkably wonderful. We even introduced them to a black-tailed rattlesnake in the Chisos Basin! They stayed at Eve's Garden... not that we blogged their breakfast or anything. Ok, we did.

June saw a bit of travel; Matt held down the fort while I went to California for a wedding - not just any wedding, but that of a former solar car competitor turned bff/dear friend. While out there, I also managed to meet that 'new' nephew of mine who was already a year old! Whoops. I'm a bad aunt. Other than seeing a few birds during the wedding ceremony, no birding was done - but plenty of friends seen/met/stayed with in the process. Also, June was crafty... because I made a skirt into a dress for the wedding.

July was an exhausting/exhilarating mix of anticipation and phone-tag during the crunch time of pre-festival madness; Matt scouted and I wrangled field trip leaders and the most awesome celebrities ever, but between the two of us and some seriously awesome trip leaders, I'd say ~22 people at a first year birding festival with Kenn and Kimberly Kaufman is pretty much a success.

Following the festival, we took a week of down time and took the small dog to Santa Fe to meet her cousin. It was great to see the long-lost relatives (we see them maybe every 2-3 years or so). The fall turned into a busy mix of shipping Matt off to the AZ/CA border for some field work and I settled into my new job at Pitaya Verde.

The shift to winter was a mix of job shuffling again; Matt focused on guiding and contract work, I put my name in the hat for a librarian position. After Thanksgiving - early December for anyone keeping track - a neighbor told us about a house with a "for sale by owner" sign out front... and we've been throwing ourselves into it, full force, since then. We do enjoy the little house of termites, but the Double Bacon, as much as we love it, is sometimes just a bit too much. There's no closing date yet, but we're up to our ears in surveys, inspections, roof quotes and generic madness. Add the new job to the existing job and the move across town seems like quite a challenge. It's a pretty hefty move: all the way from the NE side to the SW side. A whopping 17 blocks... that's clear across town, as the maximum would have been 22 blocks if we'd lived any further on the NE side!

So please bear with us through blog silence as we tackle the latest batch of challenges: we're still here and our PO box won't change (434), but we're swamped with "productive" things!

Anakin, Matt, Nauga and Heidi - Jan 2013, photo by Tom Lehr

yard list revisited

No posts here since October!? Oh dear. We were tied up with the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in early November (leading trips this time around) and then were up in NW Missouri for Thanksgiving with the family, and now we're recovering from a Lubbock County Northern Shrike Chase (27 hrs, 2 of which were spent watching the bird!)

Since the last yard list update, whenever it was (apparently January), we've added a few things:

The Double Bacon - 9/1/10
    1.    Inca Dove 9/1/10
    2.    Eurasian Collared Dove 9/1/10
    3.    Barn Swallow 9/1/10
    4.    Turkey Vulture 9/3/10
    5.    Prairie Falcon 9/3/10
    6.    White-winged Dove 9/4/10
    7.    Cliff Swallow 9/4/10
    8.    American Kestrel 9/7/10
    9.    Bronzed Cowbird 9/7/10
    10.    House Finch 9/7/10
    11.    Common Nighthawk 9/7/10  -- FOS 5/19/11
    12.    Lesser Nighthawk 9/7/10  -- FOS 4/17/11
    13.    Great-tailed Grackle 9/9/10
    14.    Lesser Goldfinch 9/9/10
    15.    Western Tanager 9/10/10
    16.    Cave Swallow 9/14/10
    17.    House Sparrow 9/14/10 est
    18.    Wilson's Warbler 9/26/10
    19.    Osprey 9/26/10 - 4/2/11
    20.    Summer Tanager 9/26/10
    21.    Black-chinned Hummingbird 9/26/10 (back? 11, back early Mar '12)
    22.    Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 9/27/10
    23.    Broad-winged Hawk 9/27/10, (4/15/11) 4/23/11
    24.    Blue Grosbeak 9/27/10
    25.    Upland Sandpiper 9/27/10
    26.    Curve-billed Thrasher 9/27/10
    27.    Northern Rough-winged Swallow 9/28/10
    28.    Brewer's Blackbird 10/3/10
    29.    Cassin's Kingbird 10/4/10
    30.    Common Raven 10/5/10
    31.    Canyon Towhee 10/7/10
    32.    Northern Flicker 10/10/10
    33.    Chihuahuan Raven 10/16/10
    34.    Anna's Hummingbird 10/28* (ID on 31st)/10
    35.    Common Poorwill 11/9/10
    36.    Cedar Waxwing 11/19/10
    37.    Allen's Hummingbird 11/20/10 (?back ~11/20/11, banded 12/7/11)
    38.    Great Horned Owl 11/20/10 (est)
    39.    Red-naped Sapsucker 12/11/10
    40.    Verdin 12/11/10
    41.    Groove-billed Ani 12/18/10
    42.    Bewick's Wren 12/21/10
    43.    Sharp-shinned Hawk 1/5/11
    44.    Red-winged Blackbird 3/8/11
    45.    Hermit Thrush 3/18/11
    46.    Lark Bunting 3/30/11
    47.    Belted Kingfisher 3/31/11, 8/11/12
    48.    Chipping Sparrow 4/1/11
    49.    Vesper Sparrow 4/2/11
    50.    Zone-tailed Hawk 4/5/11
    51.    Scott's Oriole 4/10/11
    52.    Harris's Hawk 4/10/11
    53.    Broad-winged Hawk 4/16/11
    54.    Yellow-headed Blackbird 4/20/11
    55.    Pine Siskin 4/23/11
    56.    Swainson's Thrush 4/23/11
    57.    Ruby-throated Hummingbird 4/26/11, 9/17/12
    58.    Green-tailed Towhee 4/26/11
    59.    Painted Bunting 5/9/11
    60.    Gray Flycatcher 5/10/11
    61.    Willow Flycatcher 5/11/11
    62.    Black-throated Sparrow 5/11/11
    63.    Orchard Oriole 5/11/11
    64.    Western Wood-Pewee 5/12/11
    65.    MacGillivray's Warbler 5/13/11
    66.    Vermilion Flycatcher 5/15/11
    67.    Common Yellowthroat 5/15/11
    68.    Yellow Warbler 5/15/11
    69.    American Redstart 5/15/11
    70.    Varied Bunting 6/1/11
    71.    Say's Phoebe 6/12/11
    72.    Cooper's Hawk 7/17/11
    73.    Upland Sandpiper 8/14/11
    74.    Long-billed Curlew 8/15/11
    75.    Clay-colored Sparrow 9/12/11
    76.    Baltimore Oriole 9/18/11
    77.    Townsend's Warbler 9/19/11
    78.    Black-throated Blue Warbler 9/23/11
    79.    Black-crested Titmouse 10/5/11
    80.    Double-crested Cormorant 10/29/11
    81.    Killdeer 11/18/11
    82.    Brewer's Sparrow 11/30/11
    83.    American Crow 12/10/11
    84.    Dickcissel 12/ 11/11
    85.    Gray Catbird 12/11/11
    86.    Brown Creeper 12/11/11
    87.    Brown Thrasher 12/14/11, 10/3/12
    88.    Sage Thrasher 12/25/11
    89.    Common Ground Dove 1/8/12
    90.    Eastern Bluebird 5/16/12
    91.    Barn Owl 4/1/12
    92.    Cassin's Vireo 4/12/12
    93.    American Pipit 4/13/12
    94.    Franklin's Gull 5/8/12
    95.    Black-headed Grosbeak 5/10/12
    96.    Northern Waterthrush 5/11/12
    97.    Mississippi Kite 5/18/12, 9/21/12
    98.    Canyon Wren 7/30/12
    99.    Rock Wren 10/9/12 heard only
    100.     Merlin 10/19/12
    101.     Red Crossbill 11/27/12

Jeff and pelicans

I've taken the liberty to link a few things where applicable and removed a few snippets for privacy and length - it is otherwise an e-mail exchange regarding the banded pelican from Santa Ana NWR. Cliffs notes version pending! (see footnotes for updates)

Hello!
I got a note from USGS in the mail the other day about a pelican that my husband and I saw at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge - in googling your name and hoping for a site about your project, I found a page by "birdchick" - if you'd like to see our post about the bird and tag, here's the link.
I did link to "bird chick's" site so readers could get an idea of things, but if you have another page with information I'd be happy to add it as well.
All the best with your work!
-heidi

***

Hi Heidi,

First of all, thanks a lot for reporting this bird to the BBL. Many people don't, so I really appreciate it when someone does.

And thanks for sending the link to your web post, as well as encouraging others who view it to also report banded birds to the BBL. And no, I don't have a web site about my banding project, but have often thought that I probably should, but am a little too busy these days. I had to chuckle about your comment about the bird not crossing the border, because there's another reason why it was lucky it didn't--pelicans get shot for food south of Texas. A fair number of the reports I get from Mexico are of birds that were shot for food, and almost all of the reports south of Mexico are that type of recovery. I've had recoveries from as far south as Guatemala and Nicaragua (as well as ringing the Gulf coast from the Yucatan Peninsula, up through Texas, then east to Florida and down to Cuba).

A little history on the Marsh Lake pelican colony: pelicans first returned as a breeding species in Minnesota after an absence of 100 years when 10 pairs were found nesting on a small island in Marsh Lake in 1968. Four years later (1972) my master's adviser, Dr. Alfred H. Grewe, Jr. (St. Cloud State University) began a banding project in the Marsh Lake colony that has continued every year since. To date, over 54,000 pelicans and numerous other species of colonial waterbirds have been banded in the Marsh Lake colony. Following Al's death in 2001, the BBL transferred his banding permit to my name, and with the help of numerous volunteers (many are former students of Al's), we kept his banding program going without missing a year. Next summer will be our tenth year of banding without him. The colony grew steadily through the 1970s, 80s, and 1990s before leveling off between 15,000-20,000 breeding pairs in the 2000s.

Although I don't have a web site about the banding project, there are a few other web resources that reference it. The first year we banded after Al's death, the St. Paul Pioneer Press did a story that can still be found on several web sites (e.g.
[link]).
More recently, we were joined by a 3M scientist with a personal interest in birds. He's originally from Japan, and is also involved with a web site dedicated to helping Japanese learn how to speak English "like Americans". He posted an article about pelican banding on their web site that can be found at [link] (there is also a Japanese version posted on their site).

When I took over the pelican banding project I worked as a waterfowl research biologist for the Minnesota DNR where I oversaw the state's bird banding program (primarily ducks and geese). From there, I went to the BBL where I served as their waterfowl biologist. Currently I'm pursuing a Ph.D. with a study in the Marsh Lake colony. The long term banding data will be part of that project, but I'm also looking at diet and other physiological factors related to chick growth and condition.

Thanks again for your report and additional information. I'll be sending more color-marked pelicans south next fall (as are researchers in Idaho), so keep your eyes open for additional birds with patagial tags.

-Jeff

***

Jeff,

Thanks so much for the additional history and insight! I'm so sorry to hear about hunting, it seems to be out of necessity in some regions and out of boredom in others (not too long ago there was a big stir on our state birding list about a hunter killing a pelican and a birder reported it - they'd tried to hide the body, but what a waste). Would you mind if I include some of your e-mail in a post? I'd at least like to add the two links for more background, and I finally dug up the old Abilene pelican link ...I guess some of the little fellows run out of steam sooner than others! The Abilene critter wintered in ponds adjacent to the zoo, also a pretty cushy spot (the pond has a resident pelican who can fly but never did take up migration after being released from rehab).

Happy trails,
-heidi

***

Heidi,

Yes, the hunting is out of necessity in some regions. If you read "Birdchick's" descriptions of the pelican colony, you can imagine that most banders are disgusted at the thought of eating a pelican (the colony really is gross, and the smell sticks with you long after you leave and [try to] clean up). But I was sent photos of the living conditions and extreme poverty where one of my pelicans was shot in Nicaragua, and it became abundantly clear to me why they would eat pelicans. My master's research involved tracking radio-tagged sandhill cranes from northwest Minnesota to the Gulf Coast of Texas (they were thought to winter in Florida like cranes in east central Minnesota) and the first radio-tagged bird to get there was also shot. Although cranes are a legal game species in Texas (they're nongame in Minnesota), this happened prior to any hunting seasons. It was found in a ditch with a pile of dead ducks, and it was also before duck season opened. I have since had recoveries of other sandhill cranes from northwest Minnesota legally harvested in east Texas.

Thanks for sending the additional web link (and yes, you can include the information I sent in a post). I consulted with Idaho F&G officials when they started their marking program a few years ago. Among other things, we coordinated marking protocols so there would be no confusion between their birds and mine (different colors and mark on opposite sides). I found it a bit ironic that in the entire state of Idaho they don't have anywhere near as many pelicans as we have at Marsh Lake alone, but the incentive of their research is that they want to reduce pelican numbers. Which is a big reason why we're looking at diet in the Marsh Lake colony. We're already culling cormorants at a variety of locations in Minnesota based on a perceived threat to the state's walleye fishery. Diet studies were required to allow the culling operations, but even though those studies have shown that cormorants don't eat walleyes, the culling continues and gets expanded to new areas every year. Some would like to see pelicans added to the list, so we'd like to have some data to address those issues, although banders know from what they see in the colony that pelicans eat crayfish, salamanders, and rough fish, not game fish, but people can't see beyond the term "fish-eating birds".

...pelican banding [is] usually in mid-June, although late springs in recent years have resulted in July banding dates. Pretty much just have to play it by ear each year and see what the chronology of the hatch is like. I also band in other Minnesota (and North and South Dakota colonies), but those are even more variable... Marsh Lake is the big banding day each year. We do 2,000 pelicans, and then we try to band 3-500 cormorants, 500 ring-billed gulls, and as many as possible of great blue herons, great egrets, black-crowned night-herons, cattle egrets, and Forster's terns. We do that in a single morning and try to be off the lake by noon. Our best year we banded over 3,300 birds in one morning.

Migration seems to be a strong, instinctive behavior in most birds. But, I know there is a small colony of nonmigratory white pelicans in east Texas, and one (or two) in Mexico. Perhaps the rehabed bird came from that stock? Although, a lot of birds do become somewhat "domesticated" after going through rehab, and that may have caused that behavior.

-Jeff

So much great information about where "our" pelican was from - the history of its nesting colony and the sad reality facing other pelicans. Research indicates that pelicans are not eating game fish, but people don't feel better until pelicans are culled in the name of saving game fish. This is why science needs to be taken seriously; otherwise we're wasting our own time.

Appleton to Alamo; 1,482 miles by Pelican

Last summer we shared a few posts about how reporting banded birds can be important, fun, educational and/or just plain interesting. (see posts: eagles with accessories and Camp Eagle)

A few posts back there was a photo of an American White Pelican at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. Here it is again, with a somewhat visible green tag with 398 in black. That's actually kind of important for reporting purposes.



"...a wing-tagged American White Pelican. We're waiting to hear back on that [...] but we're not holding our breath."

The Bird Banding Lab, run by USGS is where you can report bands; you need to know the kind of band and if there's no band visible because it's a live sighting, you need a plethora of information. Pretty much off the bat, you need to know the species of bird, what kind of marker, what colors are used, what numbers or codes are used, and the date & location of the sighting.

Using the information you submit, more often than not, you'll get a response within a few weeks. It may come in the form of an e-mail response from the group behind the banding of the actual bird you saw, or it could be a certificate of appreciation from USGS. (Or if it was a Black-whiskered Vireo, you're still waiting in suspense!) Come to think of it I never did post the story behind the Florida Scrub Jays that we saw.

Where was our pelican from? The highlights: "Marsh Lake"Minnesota; "was too young to fly when banded in 2009" and the band date was 07/11/09 - this information showed up in the mail yesterday on a certificate of appreciation. Oh, and a fellow named Jeff was the bander.


View Larger Map

See? The little fellow wasn't too far from our relatives in Willmar! Now, as-the-pelican-flies, it probably wasn't a full 1,482 miles but they do a lot of circling on thermals to get to where they're going. In Illinois I'd watch the pelicans flying down the Mississippi River in October and they'd be around for my Houston/Seabrook Christmas Bird Counts... then I'd see them again in the spring, heading back north. (A note about Seabrook: they're more about tourism than nature, but pelicans are prominently featured all over their city pages.)


View Larger Map

How's that for perspective? The little fellow made it all the way to the border - I don't blame him for not crossing though, it's too much of a hassle to get back into the US even with the appropriate paperwork. It's amazingly easy to get into Canada or Mexico, but the worst border grilling I've gotten was trying to get back to Buffalo, sheesh. Regardless, Santa Ana is not a bad spot to rest... even if the rest of the flock has moved on.

EDIT: Right after posting I googled Jeff Dimatteo, the fellow who is listed as the bander. There's a wonderful site about the project with some hilarious baby pictures, for those of you who might need convincing that birds are actually dinosaurs...
Banding Pelicans (hosted by birdchick)

RGV wrap up

Weeks after our most recent RGV adventure, I think I'm down to the last post. All of the birding has already been covered, so this is simply a matter of highlighting our favorite B&B and visiting some friends in Kingsville.

Alamo Inn is essentially our home-away-from-home when we're in the RGV. Owner Keith Hackland and Office Cat Gordon are gracious hosts for birders and non-birders alike, offering incredibly comfortable and unique lodging on a quiet corner in Alamo. It's the closest lodging to Santa Ana NWR as well, so when I was an intern at SANWR, it's where my folks stayed. My folks had a wonderful suite - Matt and I generally aim for the smallest room because we'd stay forever otherwise. If we were any more comfortable there, we'd never make it out for the birding! You see the dilemma.


View Larger Map

Google maps indicates that Alamo Inn not just a B&B, it also has an "outdoor store" - just about anything a birder could need if luggage was lost or destroyed. There's a variety of optics, outerwear, reference materials, you name it. We're always a bit sad to leave, but on the bright side, we've got about 40 more years to make our annual winter pilgrimage to the RGV before we're too feeble... hopefully Keith's operation will still be thriving with a new set of folks at that time!

Anyway, our drive back north was highlighted with a visit to Texas A&M's Kingsville Serpentarium - we caught up with some long lost friends and learned about the venom research and how different parts of toxins can be isolated and used for medical purposes.



You might recognize those baby spoons: they're baby spoons. They're also wrapped with a thin layer of a plastic wrap type substance. They're labeled and sitting on ice because they've been used for "milking" a Coral Snake. (L) D tube-feeds a Coral Snake.



See? Tube-feeding a Coral Snake. And being watched by a rattler.


Examine the photo below. That's at D's house. Think about it.



For a close-up of one of the residents of that room:



It boggles the mind to think of how certain researchers live and breathe their work - it follows them home (dead birds in my dorm freezer comes to mind), but it's just a part of life. And every line of work is different. You know, I think I'd draw the line at venomous snakes in my bathroom. Dead birds and rehab birds are fair game, though.

Lest I leave you with nightmares from this post, here's Happy Puppy (for lack of a better name), the little fellow who serves as welcoming committee for the Beeville Northern Wheatear:

Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge

Back in early February of 2006, Matt and I met at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. We've posted about it before but this post comes with a few surprises. So here's "that was then" from January of 2009:



I won't make you wait - the big surprise for this trip was that the trails are now marked. Not just somewhat vaguely depicted. Nope, they're actually well represented. In fact, the new sign at the trail head was just an indication of what was to come.



Look at the beauty of that map. I mean, you can see Mexico from here! Er, actually, you can see the trails... and bridges... and parking lot... it's unheard of! The old map had some squiggly lines and that was about it. But if you're looking closely at the map above, you'll notice that nowhere on the list of trails does it say anything about "C-trail" ...and that my friends is why we, here at seetrail, had a moment of silence. Sure, change can be a good thing. That map will probably save dozens of tourists from getting lost and dehydrated in hot weather. But "C-trail" as we knew it, the generically labeled trail of "where Matt and Heidi met" is no more. So "C-trail" now lives on as a pun in our title. And it's finally actually labeled for something more realistic: the lakes that it meanders through.



"Is that a muddy shoe?" Why, yes it is. Not as muddy as it ended up, but showing good progress. Last year we shared a muddy walk on "C-trail" so it seemed appropriate for the weather to cooperate. Misty, overcast, muddy. Again. At least it's not intermittently raining, like the last bird walk I recall sharing from 2006. The lovely photo next to the muddy shoe is a wing-tagged American White Pelican. We're waiting to hear back on that* (still no news from our honeymoon Black-whiskered Vireo) but we're not holding our breath.



This is now; the first week of February, 2010. AND THERE'S A SIGN! (You have no idea how awesome it is for there to be signage.) Anyway, the photo is not really at the spot where we met (forgive us, the segment of trail is 1/4 mile so it's hard to know for sure), but at least it's in front of the pond that housed the tree that hosted the sapsucker... it's turning into a book!

There was a young couple who met at a refuge that had a trail that harbored a bench that was across from a pond that housed the tree that hosted the sapsucker who startled the birders who called the RBA who alerted the folks who birded the state who... started a vicious cycle of bad poetry?

For early orders on that dramatic essay for children of all ages, drop us an e-mail. I'll even draw some stick-figures of us and the sapsucker with four different colors of crayon to serve as illustrations ;-)

trip list

1,145 miles with less than 6 days of actual birding - the condensed e-bird version, from shoddy past-tense scribbles of incomplete notes and House Wren is missing. E-bird probably hates me for the way I butcher their system, but it's my slacking chase methods that got me here. And Matt only took notes for the life birds, so I don't even want to hear it! =)

Bold denotes life birds.

Date range: Feb 1, 2010 - Feb 7, 2010
Total # of Species: 102
Total # of Checklists: 16

Location(s):
Anzalduas County Pk (LTC 068); Bentsen-Rio Grande Val. SP WBC (Mission)(LTC 069);
Brooks County; Estero Llano Grande SP WBC (Weslaco)(LTC 054); Hidalgo County;
John's farm; McAllen; Quinta Mazatlan WBC (McAllen) (LTC 063);
Roma Bluffs WBC (LTC 077); Salineno (DeWind's Yard); San Ygnacio (LTC 087);
Santa Ana NWR (LTC 059); Weslaco Cemetery; Zacate Creek; Zapata Library

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (Dendrocygna autumnalis)
Gadwall (Anas strepera)
Mottled Duck (Anas fulvigula)
Blue-winged Teal (Anas discors)
Cinnamon Teal (Anas cyanoptera)
Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata)
Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca)
Ring-necked Duck (Aythya collaris)
Plain Chachalaca (Ortalis vetula)
Least Grebe (Tachybaptus dominicus)
Pied-billed Grebe (Podilymbus podiceps)
American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos)
Neotropic Cormorant (Phalacrocorax brasilianus)
Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus)
Anhinga (Anhinga anhinga)
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)
Great Egret (Ardea alba)
Snowy Egret (Egretta thula)
Green Heron (Butorides virescens)
White-faced Ibis (Plegadis chihi)
Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus)
Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)
Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)
White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus)
Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii)
Harris's Hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus)
Roadside Hawk (Buteo magnirostris)
Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus)
Gray Hawk (Buteo nitidus)
White-tailed Hawk (Buteo albicaudatus)
Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
Crested Caracara (Caracara cheriway)
American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)
Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus)
Common Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus)
American Coot (Fulica americana)
Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)
Black-necked Stilt (Himantopus mexicanus)
American Avocet (Recurvirostra americana)
Spotted Sandpiper (Actitis macularius)
Greater Yellowlegs (Tringa melanoleuca)
Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes)
Long-billed Curlew (Numenius americanus)
Rock Pigeon (Columba livia)
Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto)
White-winged Dove (Zenaida asiatica)
Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)
Inca Dove (Columbina inca)
Common Ground-Dove (Columbina passerina)
White-tipped Dove (Leptotila verreauxi)
Eastern Screech-Owl (Megascops asio)
Buff-bellied Hummingbird (Amazilia yucatanensis)
Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris)
Ruby-throated/Black-chinned Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris/alexandri)
Ringed Kingfisher (Megaceryle torquata)
Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon)
Amazon Kingfisher (Chloroceryle amazona)
Green Kingfisher (Chloroceryle americana)
Golden-fronted Woodpecker (Melanerpes aurifrons)
Ladder-backed Woodpecker (Picoides scalaris)
Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans)
Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe)
Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus)
Great Kiskadee (Pitangus sulphuratus)
Couch's Kingbird (Tyrannus couchii)
Tropical/Couch's Kingbird (Tyrannus melancholicus/couchii)
Rose-throated Becard (Pachyramphus aglaiae)
Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus)
Green Jay (Cyanocorax yncas)
Cave Swallow (Petrochelidon fulva)
Black-crested Titmouse (Baeolophus atricristatus)
Marsh Wren (Cistothorus palustris)
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula)
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (Polioptila caerulea)
Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe)
Clay-colored Thrush (Turdus grayi)
American Robin (Turdus migratorius)
Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
Long-billed Thrasher (Toxostoma longirostre)
Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum)
Orange-crowned Warbler (Vermivora celata)
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata)
Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendroica virens)
Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas)
White-collared Seedeater (Sporophila torqueola)
Olive Sparrow (Arremonops rufivirgatus)
Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla)
Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis)
Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum)
Lincoln's Sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii)
Crimson-collared Grosbeak (Rhodothraupis celaeno)
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)
Pyrrhuloxia (Cardinalis sinuatus)
Black-headed Grosbeak (Pheucticus melanocephalus)
Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)
Eastern Meadowlark (Sturnella magna)
Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus)
Hooded Oriole (Icterus cucullatus)
Altamira Oriole (Icterus gularis)
Audubon's Oriole (Icterus graduacauda)
House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus)
House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)

highlights without feathers

Not all of our time in the Rio Grande Valley revolved around birds. In our defense, part of the trip revolved around birders; Cheryl Longton was the Santa Ana NWR volunteer who initially tried to introduce us. As you may recall, Matt and I first met on "C-trail" (more on that later!) during the Red-naped Sapsucker. Yes, a bird can be a measure of time =)

Cheryl was my foster mother for my entire internship. Dave, her husband, was absolutely the best chef a starving student could have asked for... and quite a few of my birder friends met them as surrogate parents of mine. Cheryl and her daughter, Lorie, even adopted me for a weekend in Mexico.

Cheryl and Dave at Salineno:



During our brief stay, a white cat (upper left corner of the photo below) and a cabra roja were visitors to the property. Neither was unexpected, I remember the local goat herd from my first RGV visit in 2003. Still, it's amusing to find stray goats (reminds me of Thanksgiving in Arkansas in 2007).

Cabra roja:



You're asking why I included a sad photo of a red goat and a white cat. The cat doesn't belong, but the goat was cooperative when lured with a cup of seeds (and a rope around the neck). She was guided back up the road to join the other goats; it must have been quite a sight to see two birders luring a goat down the street.

The Santa Ana NWR internship got me hooked on Rabdotus snails. Ever since then, I've been taking photos of them in whatever county I find them in. Literature is rather lacking, so my feeble attempts at ID are sad at best. But they're "cactus snails" and SANWR had R. alternatus and R. dealbatus from what I could tell. The dark striations on the shell are apparently an indicator of subspecies... of which there are quite a few, but only two that were described in any detail. Oof!

Salineno's Rabdotus alternatus:



The entire trip, Matt had to put up with my gawking at old buildings. Generally decrepit gas stations from an earlier era. Sometimes offices or houses, also decrepit. But this fascination goes well back beyond our initial pseudo-date in Dublin, TX where we stared into a vacant building's wilting ceiling fan for nearly an hour. Near the Anzalduas County Park, we spotted a local gem.

Lovely old Anzalduas landmark:



Until next time, we're staying out of the cold, wet weather!

bad photos, good birds

Here's part 2 of South Texas Birding vs. Photography, one photo per species, one-size-fits-all.

In the Rio Grande Valley Classics category, in no particular order:

Clay-colored Thrush
(Zapata - somewhat increasingly common bird in the RGV)



White-collared Seedeater
(Zapata - female; males do not exist)



Gray Hawk
(Santa Ana NWR - a gray cousin of the Red-Shouldered Hawk)



Ringed Kingfisher
(Laredo - the largest North American kingfisher)



Green Kingfisher
(Santa Ana NWR - the smallest North American kingfisher)



Plain Chachalaca
(Bentsen SP/WBC - as featured in the large, brown bird post)



Vermillion Flycatcher
(Santa Ana NWR - the reddest North American kingfisher flycatcher)



In hindsight it looks like the photos went from tolerable quality to, well, that Vermillion probably already used the provided in-flight baggie. Poor thing. It just goes to show you that low-light digi-binocular photos lead to really horrible results.

Until the next post, happy trails!

South Texas Birding vs. Photography

An earlier post promised a Gallery of Worst Photos. I'm especially pleased to announce, in addition to the Best Birds series, we can also now feature Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Classics as well. Sadly missing from the lineup is the adult male Crimson-collared Grosbeak, due to his apparent allergy of cameras (mine, at least). These photos would be sponsored by Minolta and Eagle Optics if they were any better! As it is, they're shown in a smallish format to prevent your eyes from bleeding. No need to thank me ;-)

Without further ado...

In the Best Birds category of Worst Photos Ever:

Honorable Mention -
Rose-throated Becard (Bentsen SP/WBC - a Seetrail nemesis, sporadic RGV visitor)





3rd place -
Northern Wheatear (Beeville, TX - second TX record)





2nd place -
Amazon Kingfisher (Laredo, TX - first US record)



1st place -
Roadside Hawk (Weslaco, TX - frustrating)





(Can you even find the bird in the above photos?)

The down side to all of the rarity chasing (and seeing) is not the obligation to submit documentation, so much as attaching hideous photos to document great species! Mind you, the photos posted are the best of the ones taken!

...next up will be the RGV Classics portion of Worst Photos, followed by the miscellaneous adventures of Trudell & York, Birders At Large.

birding therapy

My wisdom teeth have been out for nearly a week now and I'm not quite back to solid foods yet. There's a throb where each tooth once was, so it will be a while yet before I brave crunchy foods (tortilla chips with dinner = mistake).

That said, a healthy dose of birding therapy has kept me distracted. Smiling does hurt after a while, but thankfully Matt is ok with a grumpy Heidi.

Here's the NARBA (North American Rare Bird Alert) link for Texas that has kept us distracted. There's also the Texbirds mailing list via birding on the (dot) net to keep us updated.

We're pleased to announce that we'll soon have a post that is centered on the Gallery of Worst Photos of the Best Birds. Overcast skies + camera + binoculars = frustrated Heidi.

Photos rumored to be included are:
Amazon Kingfisher (first US record)
Clay-colored Thrush (somewhat increasingly common bird in the RGV)
Rose-throated Becard (a Seetrail nemesis, though nearly annual in the RGV)
White-collared Seedeater (female; males do not exist)

sapsucker, meet "c-trail"

We met at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in February of 2006. I'd jumped at the chance to kill time in the Rio Grande Valley while waiting for my transcripts to get sorted out (they never did), so I was a bird walk/canoe trip minion at Matt's weekend haunt.

In January of 2006, a wayward Red-naped Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus nuchalis) turned up at SANWR's "Pintail Lakes" near "C-trail." The winter range in Texas is pretty much the El Paso area, so the bird was quite unexpected. It wasn't until the 5th or 6th of February that I was able to hit the trails and see it, so Matt and I can place our meeting sometime shortly after that, but before Feb 25th, when it was last reported (thanks to Mary Gustafson for the sleuthing!)

Here's a link to a decent refuge map. On the map, you can see that the rightmost highlighted trail is "C-trail" and to the right of the "Pintail Lakes" label is an uncolored circle... that circle is the body of water along which the Red-naped Sapsucker was being seen. It, of course, was on the east side of the pond and the viewers were stuck on the path on the west side, just to the north of the official "C-trail" route.

Ever since early 2008 I've been looking through boxes in Houston, unsuccessfully, for a photo of the bird that brought us together. Jim, one of the refuge volunteers, had printed out a photo for me and autographed it upon request. It only resurfaced about a week into October when I dug up a box that had a lot of paperwork from college and it was tucked in with a few other photos from friends (one of whom is now my regional e-bird editor! *waves at Chris*)




...there it is. The "wayward sapsucker" that collided these lives. I should dig up a photo of the birders who went to Nick's wedding, since that was the group that caused the second bumping-into and ultimately led to exchange of phone numbers. There might even be a photo of a certain Green Violet-ear or soggy Heidi from Colorado Bend State Park to add to the mix.

For now, however, The Wayward Sapsucker portrait should suffice.