Sacramento and Beyond

For the past few years I've been writing trip reports and sending out or posting photos for friends. Inspired by Richard Hall's Weblog, A Brit abroad, /blogs/rjhall/, here goes:

We got a motel room in Laredo and a full night's sleep and arrived at the San Ygnacio Bird and Butterfly Sanctuary at first light on Monday, 2/13/06. It was great to be back among the south Texas specialties, with Olive Sparrows, Plain Chachalacas, Long-billed Thrashers, Altamira and Audubon's Orioles all around us. There was a cold snap in Texas, not just the Davis Mountains, so even in San Ygnacio there was frost on the ground. By 8:30 we still hadn't found the hoped for White-collared Seedeaters. We ran into Joel Ruiz, the curator, and he quickly found a pair for us. The sanctuary is a great place to visit with lots of birds and a nice diversity of habitats. It's at the end of Washington Ave in San Ygnacio.

Audubon's Oriole

Olive Sparrow

Northern Cardinal--a flashy bird for a Californian

Long-billed Thrasher

White-collared Seedeater female

There we met Ruth Richards from Ohio. While the three of us were the only people at the Sanctuary in the early morning she had twice seen a "blue" jay among the Green Jays. She said it was blue with a black head and black breast. We kept checking the areas where she had seen the bird without any luck and began hatching a plan to return the following morning.

Driving through Zapata, we noticed this interesting sign.

Only after seeing the second half did it make any sense:

Our next stop was Falcon State Park. We were lucky to run into Fran who does bird walks and she told us of two Sprague's Pipits that are regular near the old boat ramp. She only saw them in the mornings, though. We headed to the DeWinn's place in Salineno where they have been feeding birds and spending winters at the Rio Grande for over 20 years (they also told us of a few shootouts between drug runners and the authorities and having their trailer get hit by a bullet while a group was there watching birds). In short order, an adult and a juvenile Brown Jay arrived at the feeders. With two of our main targets out of the way, we enjoyed some of the colorful birds like Great Kiskadees, Green Jays and Altamira Orioles visiting their feeders.

Immature Brown Jays have yellow bills

Great Kiskadee

Green Jay and Altamira Orioles

Curve-billed Thrasher

Parked at the DeWinn's at Salineno

After a check of the river to look for Muscovy Duck, we decided to try Falcon State Park for the Sprague's Pipits. In the fading light, one of the birds was extremely cooperative and we enjoyed watching it duck through the low grass, always furtive, yet allowing extended looks. How different from its nearby congener, an American Pipit, feeding out in the open.

Sprague's Pipit

In the near dark, we then located a group of Collared Peccaries, or javelina. This was a definite highlight of the trip. Despite several visits to their habitat, we had never connected with these very charismatic pig-like creatures. There were two mothers, each with a pair of young. One set was very small, and that mother was extremely alert. She bellowed on several occasions in response to a threat unseen to us (maybe us?), causing her young to scatter each time, though they regrouped shortly. The javelina were visiting the bird feeding area in the campground, obviously cleaning up what the birds had missed. Unfortunately, it was too dark to get any but the blurriest photos. We spent a comfortable night, since it had gotten warmer, after a very successful day.

Tuesday, 2/14/06

The next morning we arrived at San Ygnacio again at first light with an eye on the entrance to the sanctuary where Ruth had seen the jay. At around 745 the jay arrived with the second group of Green Jays to move through the area. What a bird! My hands were shaking a bit as I took several photos. It remained in view for less than one minute. At the time I figured it would be easy to determine what the bird was with a decent photo. However, we're still not sure if the bird is a Yucatan Jay, a San Blas Jay, or possibly, a Bushy-crested Jay. It is likely an escaped caged bird, since members of the subgenus Cissilopha are isolated endemics in the wild, but regularly captured as pets in Mexico and Central America. Regardless, it is a fun bird to have seen and hopefully someone with experience with these species will determine which of the likely candidates it is.

I photographed this male White-collared Seedeater on our second visit to the San Ygnacio Bird and Butterfly Sanctuary.

Red Admiral

We spent the rest of the day looking for Muscovy Duck. I actually glimpsed what must have been one at San Ygnacio, but it was entirely unsatisfactory and Kimya only saw a blur through the trees. We spent the night in McAllen, giving up, at least for the time being, on the duck, and hoping to find the Gray-crowned Yellowthroat at Sabal Palms. We had done very well in the first two days of the "real" part of the trip, but unfortunately the weather was taking a turn for the worse. Wind was forecast up to 30 mph. In fact, as we got into our motel room, it was really blowing.

Wednesday, 2/15/06

We were to find that our run of success was just about over. A windy early arrival at Sabal Palms provided views of an equivocal yellowthroat that I'm now nearly certain was a Common Yellowthroat. The area where the male Gray-crowned was being reported was in the full brunt of the wind. We retreated to Boca Chica beach and had a pleasant afternoon there, even watching folks cast nets into the gulf on the very near Mexican side of the Rio Grande.

Brown Pelican

Caspian Tern

Royal Terns

We got a motel room in Brownsville and checked the Green Parakeet roost near the International Bridge. The scene was quite different than had been described in the ABA guide and the roost appears to be mostly abandoned or has moved. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the marsh area on the college, with Anhingas, Least Grebes, and many other waterbirds. We also saw a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker on a palm tree and a small group of parakeets fly by. Reading in the ABA guide that Pauraques are sometimes seen on the entrance road to Sabal Palms, we returned, only to be accosted and have "our papers" checked by the Border Patrol. The guy was polite, but very serious. As we limped away, a group of Northern Bobwhites ran across the road and picked through the old corn in the near dark. We figured we'd leave the area to the Border Patrol, the Pauraques, and the folks trying to run the gauntlet.

Softshell turtles and Black-bellied Whistling-Duck near a McDonald's in Brownsville

Our Muscovy Duck at last? Is it wild?

Well, this one was smoking a cigarette outside the McDonald's.

Thursday, 2/16/06

Another early morning at Sabal Palms and a flash of yellow that may have been the Gray-crowned Yellowthroat. We retreated, from the wind blown upland and took an leisurely walk through the wetlands and palms, enjoying our first views for the trip of Couch's Kingbird and several waterbirds. A Ringed Kingfisher rattled noisily.

Gadwall

White-tipped Dove

Plain Chachalaca

Gulf Fritillary

Other butterflies. If you know the species, please let me know:

From there we went to Laguna Atascosa NWR and took a drive through Ocelot habitat.

It was there that we also picked up Birding on Borrowed Time, by Phoebe Snetsinger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_Snetsinger). Kimya read this book to me as I drove much of the way through Arizona and California toward home. (Incidentally, we had run into Bob Ambrose (sp?) at San Ygnacio who had been in the van that killed Phoebe when the driver had fallen asleep. Fortunately, Bob wasn't badly hurt in the crash. This, of course, made me think about falling asleep on Hwy 10. Otherwise, we had a very nice talk with Bob and his brother. They seemed like genuinely decent people). After driving the auto tour, we headed to South Padre Island.

We were sorry to miss this act.

Highlights were many ducks, especially Redheads, drinking the fresh water coming out of the marsh, and close views of a Sora along with calling (I assume) Clapper Rails. We still haven't seen a King Rail!

Piping Plover--note bands

Redhead drinking

Tricolored Heron

Heading north that evening on Hwy 77 we were pulled over by a highway patrol officer. He said he clocked us doing 73 mph, and the speed limit is 65 at night. I was amazed when he decided to let us go with a warning--not just out of state plates, but Californians!

Friday, 2/17/06

We booked a trip for Friday morning on the Skimmer out of Rockport Harbor for another visit with Whooping Cranes and a chance to see the off course Greater Flamingo that was banded in the Yucatan. The weather had gotten rough, and the tiny ship was tossed... We had nice views on choppy seas of the cranes and the flamingo, along with other water birds, a wild pig, and several dolphins. Being inside the barrier islands there was no swell, so while the chop was uncomfortable, it wasn't likely to make one seasick.

Whooping Cranes. The young bird has the rusty head.

Greater Flamingo

Wild Pig

After the boat trip, we headed north toward Oklahoma and Hwy 40, just bypassing Crawford. We were ostensibly heading for home, but were going to try for Lesser Prairie-Chicken at an area I had read about in Jerry Cooper's Birdfinder: Guide to Planning North American Trips, published by the ABA. Further information was found online. Also in the area we hoped to see sparrows, such as American Tree and Harris' Sparrow, that are rare to California. Just before dark we stopped at an Army Corps reservoir park called Cedar Ridge Park (for some reason, junipers are often called cedars) near Fort Hood on Hwy 36. We found that it was an RV park and not for day use, but the folks at the entrance station were very friendly and let us drive in and walk around for a few minutes after hours of driving. Turkeys and White-tailed Deer were on the lawns. There were pretty rock formations around the edge of the "lake" and quite a few songbirds, including a Pine Warbler.

The forecast was getting worse as we headed north, with reports of "frozen drizzle" and dangerous driving conditions. Just before leaving Texas I was to hit the fifth and final animal of the trip. A raccoon was in the middle of the road, it took two steps across the road to my left, then dashed back under my tires as I was swerving to the right. In all my years of driving I had hit one ground squirrel and one jackrabbit. Now, in a few days in Texas I had hit four rabbits and a raccoon. Killing the raccoon bothered me a lot more than the rabbits.

The bridges were getting very icy and there was a big police presence trying to slow traffic with numerous accidents and spin outs in evidence. We stopped at a rest area on Hwy 44 for a few hours sleep and to get off of the road. It was very cold despite sleeping bags and all of our coats and other clothes piles on us. By early morning it was in the low teens, but we had advanced to Elk City on Hwy 40 by dawn.

Saturday, 2/18/06

American Tree Sparrows

Heading north on Hwy 283 toward Arnett, the roads and weather had gotten much better. We made a few stops, and had nice views of Field, American Tree, and Harris' Sparrows.

Harris' Sparrows

Finally arriving, obviously later in the day than hoped, near Arnett where the Lesser Prairie-chickens are reported. We drove the back roads looking at the patches of shinnery oak where they are purported to feed in winter. No luck for us, but we did see a lot of oil or natural gas exploration, at one point blocking the road. Time to head on. We crossed back into Texas, heading toward Amarillo on Hwy 60. We made a brief stop at what was mapped as the HQ for the Black Kettle National Grasslands, but was not much more than a shack and was closed anyway. The small lake, however, held a few Canvasbacks and over 50 Hooded Mergansers. A roadkill Armadillo (not by me!) was interesting to observe, with the legs and carapace that belong more on a reptile or insect. Very interesting. Kimya took over the driving duties and we headed from the armadillo to Amarillo, got back on Hwy 40 and quickly left Texas behind for New Mexico.

Sunday, 2/19/06

We spent the night in Moriarty, just east of Albuquerque and drove on to Gallup. Inspired by John Trochet's stories of Zuni, we headed south and drove through the Zuni pueblo, seeing hundreds of Mountain Bluebirds. (Seeing John last Saturday, I showed him a picture with the colorful rock formations behind the bluebirds, and asked him if he knew where the picture was taken. He looked at it on the screen of my camera and quickly responded that it was the Zuni Formation).

From there, we entered Arizona and drove up through the Petrified Forest National Park toward Hwy 40. Kimya and I both found the petrified logs, the petroglyphs, and the "painted desert" spectacular.

Petrified trees

Polished cross sections

Petroglyphs

Pueblo remains

And painted desert scenes

We headed west in earnest in the late afternoon and arrived home mid-day Monday. A very full trip, but as Kimya has said, despite the first couple of days, it was more "leisurely" than our typical trips. Still, we had covered 5,200 miles. So much to see, so little time.

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