February 07, 2005
Texas madness! Day 1
Thursday craziness strikes again... On returning from a lecture I ran into Marcel, who told me that in a moment of boredom he'd looked at the extraordinary selection of Mexican birds currently in Texas, and promptly booked flights to Austin leaving the nest day! I thought about it for about 5 minutes, and soon found myself booked on the very same flights. I felt rather guilty, as I had to cancel a promised outing to look for Long-eared Owls with Alison, but this guilt was quickly alleviated when she decided to come along too!
We all worked like crazy on Friday morning, packed in about 5 minutes, flew to Austin, drove south for four hours, crashed at 2am, and got up again at 4:30am to reach Frontera Audubon for dawn! The first birds we saw in the parking lot were Great Kiskadee and Golden-fronted Woodpecker, both US ticks for me. Shortly after this it was announced over the radio that a male Crimson-collared Grosbeak was being seen at a feeder. In the race to get to this bird, I had to make the painful decision to walk past my life Long-billed Thrasher (a good move, it turns out, as we saw plenty of these later in the morning). The male Crimson-collared Grosbeak was still showing beautifully, eating leaves and cranberries. The combination of its bold colours, distinctive behaviour and the added spice of extreme rarity make this a real knockout bird.
The mind-blowing birds continued to come thick and fast as my life Elegant Trogon landed only feet away. Unfortunately the bird was too close to get its whole body in the frame!
Another radio message and we were soon peering through the understory to catch a glimpse of my first US Clay-colored and White-throated Robins feeding in the same binocular view alongside an American Robin. Leaving the crowds behind, I just had time to find my life Tropical Parula before we headed for our next target - four world ticks before 9am can't be bad!
Our amazing luck continued in Brownsville, as Marcel very quickly spotted my life Golden-crowned Warbler. I only managed this terrible digibinned shot of the back of the bird - look closely and you can even see its golden crown!
But the warbler was not my only lifer here - the ponds held my first Ringed Kingfisher...
... Fulvous Whistling-Duck...
... plus my first US Anhinga...
and a wild-looking Muscovy Duck (apparently not countable here).
Still in shock, we headed to nearby Sabal Palms Audubon, about as far south as you can get in the US. The madness continued, as a report of a Gray-crowned Yellowthroat came over the radio. I got to distracted en route by my life Swamp Sparrow (at last!), but got to the Yellowthroat just in time to get brief views of it when another radio message had us racing back for a split-second glimpse of an elusive Blue Bunting.
With the key birds in the bag, I was able to relax slightly. Alison and I were able to successfully track down our life Least Grebes. These tiny, hyperactive birds were dwarfed by the nearby Pied-billed Grebes!
We returned to the Gray-crowned Yellowthroat site to find it devoid of birders, and a little pishing resulted in much better views of the bird. Soon afterwards Alison spotted her first (and my first US) Groove-billed Ani, obligingly sitting by the side of the path.
We met up with Marcel at the 'Swamp Sparrow pool' to enjoy the flurry of warbler activity - between us we recorded 14 species at this spot including both Parulas, Northern Waterthrush, American Redstart, Pine, Tennessee and Black-throated Green Warblers. We stopped by the visitor centre for a much-needed cold drink, and to watch the feeders. We had close-up views of my lifer Black-crested Titmice and White-tipped Doves...
... and my first US Green Jays, Olive Sparrow and Plain Chachalacas. In yet another stroke of amazing good fortune, I spotted a beautiful female Rose-throated Becard here, meaning that we had made a clean sweep of all the rare birds at this site!
After eating the worst beef tacos of my life, we headed for Bentsen State Park to see out the rest of the day. As well as enjoying my first US Green Kingfisher and Cave Swallows over the Rio Grande, we had fine looks at a Gray Hawk, adult Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Vermilion Flycatcher and Tricolored Heron. On chasing up some rustling from the undergrowth I was thrilled to see my first ever Armadillo at close range. As dusk approached we struck birding gold again with a close fly-by of my lifer Hook-billed Kite. Days don't come much better than this!