Padre Herons

There are so many herons and egrets at the Birding Center and they are so easy I wasn't going to bother posting photos, except for a Green Heron that is going to get its own posting later. Then this morning I was talking on the phone to Brian Plath planning our day - which will include a little cool afternoon birding, then a meal at the Blue Onion, our regular stop. It has an extensive beer menu, even over a dozen sours. Now some of us would view this as an opportunity to expand our horizons, but ol' buddy Brian, who spent most of his adult life in Germany, orders the same Hefeweizenbier every time because, "there are so many on the list that it's confusing". 

Okay, enough picking on Brian, I am posting this for him because this morning he said, "Did you get any Reddish Egrets, they're my favorites". And they may be mine too, though I really like Green Herons. The Reddish Egrets are fun because most herons and egrets either hunt by freezing stone still or by slow motion stealth. The Reddish are having none of that. They hunt by running about jumping up and down, generally raising hell and scaring the fish;  then they stop and spread a feathered wing shade umbrella and nail the fish when they come back for shelter. It's a great show to watch.

And here is some portrait shots - like Heron Senior High yearbook photos.

Time to go out and bird a bit, - Gunnar

South Padre Skimmers

Sunday I drove down to South Padre Island to deliver Lorna to spend a few days with her sisters. Our first stop was Padre Brewing where we had food, beer and conversation with Markus the brewmaster, and we bought a box of Girl Scout cookies from the cutest little girl I have ever seen. She jumped up and down when I bought one box. When Mark gave her $50 dollars for a stack of boxes she was laughing, squealing and dancing in circles! Mark looked pretty happy too. I think he may have gotten his money's worth. Beer, sea food and Thin Mints - one stop shopping. 

Then on to the World Birding Center where we talked to Javi Gonzalez. (Happy birthday, Jav.)  The tide was very high which eliminated most of the shorebirds, but the Black Skimmers were working the shallow northeast pond. Skimmers fly along the surface with their thin lower mandible slicing the water like a knife, clamping on any fish they hit. It was "remove your baseball cap" windy. Too bad, the fun photos could have been fantastic with reflections on the water. 

If it ain't one thing, its another. - Gunnar

Fajitas and Night-Herons

A cool and wet Friday. And what is special about Friday? Friday is the day Marisol comes to clean the apartment and change linens, so it is convenient for us to be somewhere else. So we hit the road to McAllen to drop off our recycling and pick up a couple of loaves of bread at the Breadsmith Bakery, with the intent to then go on to bird the Edinburg Wetlands. Breadsmith is a franchise chain out of Wisconsin that makes "European style" bread, which proves to be the kind of bread that both Lorna's and my Danish grandmothers used to bake a couple of times a week. I think both Gramma Berg and Gramma Adena would be proud of the bread.

Unfortunately, The Wetlands were having their annual student RGV Coastal Expo and we were not able to access the park. Changing plans, we headed for Weslaco with a pitstop at the Hutto Road exit to pick up handmade chicken fajitas at the Laredo Taco Company for a picnic lunch at Estero Llano State Park. "Picnic" meaning eating fajitas in our car in the parking lot. 

We walked the park, occasionally resting at benches, not seeing anything new except an immature Cooper's Hawk.  I was pleased with the photo of the three Snowy Egrets, but they are amazingly photogenic. You have to almost be trying to take a bad photograph of a Snowy Egret.

The Black-crowned Night-Heron was a harder shot as it was on the far shore across Alligator Lake. Being a hand-held shot, it required a bird that didn't move and a photographer that hadn't had too many cups of morning coffee. Because of the distance I really was quite pleased,  probably as much as any photo this year. 

This cool weather is really getting to be a drag, - Gunnar

Doves On the Porch

It is cold, wet and getting colder. We walked the one block down the street to the El Dorado restaurant for lunch, keeping close to the wall to shelter from the wind. The same family has been serving really quite ordinary Mexican food at the El Dorado for three generations. It is full of mostly wrinkled pink diners who wouldn't know a taco from a tamale; why change the menu now? Except for a going away dinner for friends last year this is the first time we have eaten there in three or four years. I have to say the decor has been nicely upgraded and the food has maintained it's consistency.

Upon returning, we found Inca Doves huddled for dry warmth on the railing under our rear porch roof. These are adult birds, about the size of a large sparrow with a long tail. I hesitate to use the word "cute" to describe birds or animals, but my second choice would have to be "darling", and I simply cannot go there. (Photo taken through glass of our kitchen sink window.)

Still humming that old song.

That old time feeling
Goes sneaking down the hall
Like an old gray cat in winter
Keeping close to the wall

And that old time feeling
Rocks and spits and cries
Like an old lover remembering
That girl with the clear blue eyes

Close to the wall in the subtropics - Gunnar

An Oriole Day

The first photos were taken at the National Butterfly Center; the three Oriole species were taken a half mile down the road at Bentsen State Park.  

Great-tailed Grackle

Chachalaca

Screech Owl

Kiskadee

The large Altamira Oriole and the Audubon's are birds native to Mexico that only show up in the far south tip of Texas, and even then my Sibley field guide describes them as "rare" or "uncommon and local" within that limited range. The Hooded Oriole is another Mexican bird that summers in the far south of the U.S. from south Texas across to southern California. The Sibley says it in "uncommon", but I have found it to be much more uncommon, at least in winter, than the similar but larger Altamira Oriole. Descriptions aside, it was really fun to see all three within a quarter of a mile of each other.

Altamira Oriole (first year - breeding age birds are screaming orange)

Audubon's Oriole

Hooded Oriole

Hooded

- Gunnar

Tamales and Santa Ana NWR

It was hot today - in the mid 80s. When it cooled down a little later in the afternoon we went for a short hike - short because I wasn't feeling well, maybe because I ate too many tamales with too much salsa. But jeez, Manjar's is only three blocks a way and, and, and ... they were wrapped in cornhusks and bundled in layers of foil to keep them warm. And they were warm.

Green Jay, Common Yellowthroat, and a Nine-banned Armadillo.

       Feeling much better now - Gunnar

Yellow-throated Warbler

I don't have the energy for a snappy narrative this evening. Briefly, after lunch we met Brian and Jutta at Estero Llano State Park and I took a few ordinary photographs of common birds. One exception, a good looking male Yellow-throated Warbler. As they say, if you get one good photo a day you are doing okay.

Today, this was it. - Gunnar

A Spiny Lizard and a Banned Kiskadee

Lorna was visiting her sisters on South Padre with our truck, so Brian Plath offered to furnish the wheels for a day of birding and generally harassing each other. The Brain had pulled himself out of bed bright and early so by 11:00 we were on the road to Quinta Mazatlan. Brian hadn't seen a Blue Bunting since there was the one at Frontera a couple of years ago. We were hopeful.

We were there for quite a while, seeing nothing special or unusual. Eventually we wandered away from the other Bunting hunters to a little nook in the bushes with promising views. In the deep shadows The Bird is black, but if the sun catches it it shows flashes of blue light. After a while Brian spotted the little blue bugger back in the undergrowth. A good find. Just as he raised his camera, there was the flash of a Cooper's Hawk fly-by. When a hawk shows up all the bite-size birds vanish, sometimes disappearing for half an hour or more. 

Brian got a rather poor I.D. photo of The Bird for his year list and he was happy. We decided it was over for our Bunting day.

We hiked the estate trails for a while, then spent some time touring the large hacienda until mid afternoon when Brian claimed he had the shakes and he was in danger of passing out from hunger. As it was obviously a life threatening situation we went directly to the McAllen Blue Onion for some life saving sustenance, beer and fish soup. I believe we probably made it just in the nick of time. 

On our way back to Alamo the navigator lady in the cell phone became quite confused and we ended up at the San Juan Wetlands (the sewer ponds and garbage dump). There were a few ducks, Least Grebes, and Great and Snowy Egrets. 

It was 84F and sunny, not humid or windy, a great day to finish off with a friend and a Templeton Rye on our high porch.

Thanks Brian - Gunnar 

Another Bunting Outing

The morning started out cool and dew-drenched as we headed to Quinta Mazatlan in McAllen to hopefully get a better look at their immature male Blue Bunting. I think as the season has gone on this bird is slowly losing the brown of an immature bird - getting bluer. (And again, this is not an Indigo Bunting, it is a larger, bluer and much rarer bird). No matter, bird or not, there was breaking sun and the forecast was for warmer. 

I really hate taking photos of birds on artifical feeders, but sometimes to see the bird you just have to bite the bullet, sit down with a view of a feeding station and wait. So we settled our backsides down to try to warm up some night-chilled rock benches. And waited. The weather was sunny and warming, and we found a couple of rocks beside John and Ed, winter birders we have known for a few years.  The rumor was that the Bunting had been sighted earlier and left, but we were hopefully - it seemed just a matter of time. John and I were talking birds, climate, floods, violent weather, etc. After an hour or more, Ed said he needed to pee off his morning coffee and he walked off to find the restroom. Whereupon John said, "When Ed gets back let's all say the bird showed up while he was gone." As if on cue, as if by magic, the bird immediately appeared on the far feeder. Lorna, John and I got as many photos as we wanted. click, click, click, click.

The sunlight and shadow contrast was a little harsh, the bird was at some distance, but damn! it was a Blue Bunting out in plain view!  Eventually it left ... and Ed returned. 

 May your life have warm sunshine and Blue Buntings, - Gunnar

Owl In the Wind

It is a positively gorgeous day - though a little windy. Actually it is quite windy, which honestly is pretty typical for The Valley. We spent the morning at Estero Llano wandering around talking to friends and watching the hummingbird banding. There are half a dozen species here. I think they only caught Buff-bellied or Black-chinned. Whatever, they caught three - actually only two because one not so bright Black-chinned did not get enough stress the first time and came back for more.

Here is a sleepy Great-horned Owl we saw half-napping in a high palm. 

That's all I got, except an Abbey Dubbel for later. (If you do not know what that is, we do not have anything else to discuss. ;-)  - Gunnar

Birding: Long Periods of Boredom

... punctuated by moments of excitement. 

Or not. We were out this morning to try again for the Rose-throated Becard at Santa Ana. There was a rotating group of half a dozen people staring hopefully into the high greenery of the trees where it was last seen. People came, people left, more came to take their place. Nothing. 

After a couple of hours we threw in the towel and decided to walk the long way around Willow Lake. More nothing birdwise, but the weather was sweet and it was a beautiful walk surrounded by curtains of Spanish Moss hanging all the way to the ground. 

Earlier we had met a gentleman who takes videos of birds and he was looking for a Winter Wren. Lorna directed him to a location to where she had seen and photographed the Wren, which is apparently rare this far south. When we approached the area from the back side the guy was there with has camera trained into the low brush over the water. He gave her a big smile and a thumbs up. Alas, the bird did not show again, though he was quite excited when she showed him a link to her photos on her cellphone. He was of the opinion that if she submitted them to eBird at Cornell University the course of ornithological science would be changed forever and she would possibly become world famous. Or something to that effect. He did not seem to grasp that world fame was not only not a goal, but would be a living nightmare to an introverted person. 

By then it was early afternoon and my stomach had been discussing lunch for some time - here's some pictures I shot on the way back to the truck. 

Great water edges, eh?

Lunch was good. Next, a nap. - Gunnar

Wasted Days

Baldemar Garza Huerta, aka Freddy Fender. Freddy had a hit with Wasted Days early in his career, then a serious bump - three years in Angola Prison for possession of marijuana. After he got out he released The Next Teardrop. He charted a couple of dozen songs on the Country, Spanish and Pop charts. And he was one soulful hombre.

Each time we drive down to South Padre or Brownsville we pass the San Benito water tower. And most times either Wasted Days or Teardrops gets punched into my memory replay jukebox.

If you have to have an earworm it could be much worse than Teardrops.

Thanks for the earworm? You are welcome. - Gunnar