Day One - Eventually everybody got into one airport or the other...apparently some members of the group really needed an aerial tour of the southwest prior to arriving in McAllen. In any case, all the participants arrived and we went directly to dinner at the Blue Onion, a place verging on the 'divey' side but with a wonderful menu that lives up to the hype. Not only was the food excellent, our waitress, who
appeared to be about 16 years old, was fantastic and got us all fed and watered in no time at all...not a small task for this group!
Day Two - Our first full day had us out the door at what is not exactly the crack of dawn hour, but in this case due to the recent change to daylight savings it is not even light until 7:30! I felt like the ultimate bird guide whimp informing my group that we would not be departing the hotel for birding until 8 a.m! You would have thought that I just gave them back all their tour money and told them the trip was free! I was happy to announce it and everyone seemed overjoyed to hear it!
We had a short 15 minute drive to our first birding location and right out of the van we had a singing Long-billed Thrasher and a Green Heron pretending to be a Mockingbird up on the electric wires. A short walk down the old road into the 'tropical' area produced absolutely fantastic looks at Red-crowned Parrots investigating a nesting situation in the truck of an old cottonwood. We were given protracted looks at them as they carved at the rot with their bills and casually crawled in and out of the cavity.
Then we spent a few minutes looking around for the White-throated Thrush that was being seen earlier but our attention span was short and we were off to find other goodies. Kip may never forgive me for not having more time to look for that bird for his ABA list!
We spent a bit of time on the wonderful veranda of the Visitor’s Center at Estero Llano Grande, where we got good looks at a number of species of water fowl and waders while enjoying the shade and the screaming school kids. Then it was off for a walk to
Alligator Lake where we were side lined by two Pauraques sleeping on their day roosts which happened to be on the ground about 4 feet from the trail! Not only did we get good looks, the photographic opportunities were endless! At the end of the trail there was not only one alligator, but one giant one with her babies on her back...pretty cool!
We grabbed sandwiches at 'La Subway'and drove off to the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge right on the Rio Grande and the Mexican border. I figured it would be nicer to eat out picnic style rather than watch people get refills on their big gulps at Subway!
Here we sat in the shade listening to the Carolina Wrens and watching a White-tipped Dove crawl through the underbrush. After lunch, we headed off into the heat and the beautiful trails of the Refuge that make their way past ponds filled with birds. Even in the heat of the day we found a lot of birds before packing it in and heading back to the hotel for a couple hours off before dinner. Tonight, we went to Milano’s close to the hotel. It was great food and a lot of fun! It sort of felt like there might be Texas gangsters making deals in the back rooms of the place.I liked the old funky feel of the place the food was pretty good too!
Day Three - Today was boat trip day and we made the hotel departure a bit earlier to get to the dock before the winds made things too rough. I had never done a boat trip on a pontoon boat with rattan furniture and old couches, but I have to say that it was rather civilized! The birding was pretty good too. We only got brief and distance looks at a little yellow blob that I told everyone was a Mangrove
Warbler, but that seemed to satisfy most everyone one, why wouldn’t they believe
me?! One of the down sides of the pontoon was that we could not get too close to the mangrove due to the draw of the boat. We got fantastic looks at nearly all of the possible herons and egrets and if people had never seen a Laughing Gull they cannot say that now...we saw thousands of them. A little added excitement came with the motor on Scarlet’s boat deciding to need a new starter and forced some of us to make some fancy footwork onto the other boat, although not exactly a swift water rescue, it was exciting! After the trip, we were off to have lunch in downtown South Padre Island. It was much as I expected lots of T-shirt and surf shops catering to beach tourists and our timing for spring breakers could not have been better. Maybe as exciting as having the boat breakdown was hearing Eleanor ask Kip “How does a beer bong work?”. Apparently beer bongs area hot item for spring breakers!
Day Four -Today it was off to the Edinburg Wetlands where we had views of numerous
ducks and other water fowl. Then it was back to the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge for one more walk around and a visit to the hawk watching area, which we had not done on the previous visit. Afterwards we grabbed lunch at' La Subway'and headed back to the hotel to eat it, before some of us took off for a trip back over to Port Isabel to look for some raptors. The drive all the way back down there was worth it! We ended up getting great looks at an Aplomado Falcon, a bird that historically was in this area and has now been re-introduced, even if it was re-introduced, it was really neat to see the bird in the US! The rest of the drive produced an Eastern Meadow Lark, Peregrine Falcon, Crested Caracara and a decent look at a White-tailed Hawk for some. A pretty good afternoon in very little time, plus I got a good photos of the San Benito water tower and its ode to Freddie Fender.
We met the remainder of the group and headed off to look for the Green Parakeets that have adapted to a rather urban
environment (serious understatement) in the town of McAllen, Texas. I was more than a bit pessimistic as we drive down the corridor of big box stores and strip malls, windows down hoping to hear the chirps of high flying Parakeets over the drone of cars and trucks. Then, without hesitation, Kip pulls into a Lowes parking lot and announces over the radio that he hears Parakeets. Nearly immediately, I see the obvious wing beats of a small flock of parakeets headed over the Chase Bank building and landing on power lines on one of the busiest intersections in McAllen! I quickly pulled over and got the scope on the birds. Kip got stuck at a red light but eventually got into the bank parking lot and got another scope on the birds! It was a fine moment; I love that kind of stuff!
Day Five – Bentsen State Park was great this morning. We took the tram out to the hawk watch tower and spent a good long hour watching lots of birds. We had Ringed Kingfishers, Groove-billed Anis, White-tailed Kite and lots of Broad-winged Hawks migrating to the north. Certainly there were hundreds of them, if not more. Then, we were off for the long hot drive to Rio Grande City and a quick trip over to Roma, a small city right on the Rio Grande with an overlook that peers into Mexico. There was very little in the way of birds at the fine hour of 'too-hot thirty', but this is not to say that there was not anything interesting to look at. By scoping around the city park on the other side (read: Voyeur) I spotted something that just didn’t look right… For one second it appeared to be a woman in a very short skirt with no top...but with further, yet rapid, investigation, I realized it was a man! Being the good guide that I am, I put the subject in the scope and invited Chuck to take a look. I’m not sure that he appreciated the visual but it was pretty funny! Then, it was back to Rio Grande City and to the hotel, birding in that heat was not something that seemed wise or potentially productive at that point.
Day Six - We were greeted this morning by ridiculously balmy 74 degree temperatures and a very deep humidity, enough to make
one worry about how hot it could possibly get during the day! Fortunately, it ended up being overcast all day, and as we drove west the temperature actually went down significantly! By the time we got to Salineno it was rather pleasant and it was nice to walk along the banks of the Rio Grande in a place where there was no development, a relief after all we had been driving through. We had wonderful scope looks at Ringed Kingfisher, Audubon’s Oriole and Red-billed Pigeon, all south Texas specialties. Then a quick stop at Falcon Dam where we were treated to mostly great looks at Roadrunner and Pyrroloxias but some of us got looks at Northern Bobwhites on the entry road into the park.
Then it was on to our last 'La Subway'lunch in Laredo and then a stop at the liquor store in Uvalde, where everyone tanked up on spirits for our time at Neal’s. I got a kick out of the owner when he asked to see every ones ID…not their age, but their AARP card!
We had a nice home cooked dinner at Neal’s before heading back to the wonderful cabins and a very quiet and restful night’s sleep. I really liked Neal’s Lodge a lot, it has that feel of an old established resort, but everything was in good working order and comfortable. It is a lot like what we are trying to do at El Pedregal, and think we are on the right track. Although I had a great time in the Rio Grande Valley, it was really nice to get into the Hill Country and out of the city.
Day Seven – This morning we had a big breakfast at Neal’s before taking off for Lost Maples State Natural Area. The light of day came late due to the rather dense fog accompanied by a rather relentless mist. Our big target of the morning was the Golden-cheeked Warbler. A couple of us actually got on one before we even left the cabins, but after a lot of tramping around in the wet grass by the leaders we finally did get some rather distant scope views of one singing at the tops of the trees. Eventually, a female appeared in the junipers in front of us, allowing a few others to get a look.
After lunch we packed up and headed off to Utopia and the Sabinal River to look for a Barred Owl that Kip had found a couple of years back. As usual, you never know if the bird is still around, but in this case, as advertised, Kip coaxed the puppy in with a few of his best Barred Owl hoots. It was a great moment and the photos that I got rank right up there with the best I’ve ever gotten, not to mention that we all got fantastic looks at this fabulous bird!
Tonight we had an early dinner and headed down the road to the bat cave to witness what can be described only as a natural or super-natural phenomenon. I’ve seen a couple of big bat flights, one actually in Alamos, but I was ill prepared for what we witnessed tonight! Millions of Brazilian Free-tailed bats (10 to 12 million is the best guess) emerging from a small cave in a procession that went on for nearly two hours. Prior to the bats exit we got to watch some amazing aerials by a large flock of Cave Swallows that were trading
places with the bats for the night. Meanwhile, several hawks including Coopers, Red-tailed and a Merlin took their turns picking off a bat or two by flying into the massive stream on mammals that looked more like trails of smoke heading off into the distance! Eventually the number of bats diminished to a trickle, but not until nearly two hours had passed.
Day Eight – This morning we said goodbye to Neal’s and headed off for the Kerr Wildlife Refuge about an hour and a half to the north. Our big target bird was the Black-capped Vireo and anything else that we might scare up. The weather was unseasonably cool with temps right around 40 when we got up and very overcast. We walked a bit of paved road within the Refuge listening for the distinctive song of the Black-capped Vireo. I have seen many of these birds on their wintering grounds in western Mexico, but had never looked for them on their breeding grounds, so I was excited to see one singing in breeding habitat. It took a good long while of chasing down the calls of the Vireos before most of the group got a pretty good look at this snappy little bird! We found a small area with tables to woof down the box lunch from Neal’s before hitting the road to look for the hidden German bakery somewhere in Fredericksburg. We ended the day in Johnson City and had a nice dinner in town at the Silver K Café, a small place that pushed the limit for our big group and did a great job.
Day Nine – Today we made a neat stop at the Perdernales Falls State Park on
our way to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center outside of Austin, and a good stop it was! Not only did we end up getting far better views of the Golden-cheeked Warbler, we had a surprise visit by a Red-breasted Nuthatch (or two?) that stuck around for a while. Later, we all walked down to have a look at the falls which were indeed quite impressive and got a good group photo to boot!
Our big destination of the day was the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower center outside of Austin, a necessary stop for a botanical garden group! The center is obviously well funded and beautifully constructed and has very good exhibits and a large gift shop and Cafe, where we ate lunch. Afterwards the group was given a tour of the grounds by one of the docents before going hog wild in the gift shop! Unfortunately due to the ongoing drought in that part of the world the woldflower show was a bit meager, but we still managed to see a lot of Texas Blue Bonnets as well as a few other native species.
We drove on down to San Antonio where we spent our last night right on the River Walk...not the easiest thing logistically speaking, but a lot more fun than being trapped out at the airport! We had a big farewell dinner at a busy Mexican place called "Acenar", which was a lot of fun. Well, at least until everyone got their margarita bills!
Day Ten – Today marked the final morning of our tour, an interesting trip through the Rio Grande Valley and the hill country of Texas. In total we had 196 birds and maybe as many laughs. I want to thank all of the participants who put up with the Texas guide from Michigan and the guy who followed him around like a tattoo! I had a wonderful time and thanks to Kip for all his hard work putting the itinerary together...I truly love working with that guy! Thanks ya'll for a great trip!
Red-crowned Parrots
Mom and her babies
A sleeping Pauraque
I've never seen so many Green Jays
One beautiful Laughing Gull
His big hit was, "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights"
The urban Green Parakeets of McAllen
Hundreds of Broad-winged Hawks!
Finally we got looks at Audubon's Oriole
Mr Barred Owl
This guy had run into a pole, we saved him!
The group at the falls
The Great Horned Owl at the Wildflower Center
