Monday in South Texas

After another scrumptiliplumpticious breakfast, we decided to head south to the very tip of southern Texas and the Rio Grande river area. I had heard about this meccas for birders and wondered why all the fuss. It didn't take long to find out. First we went to a state park south of Mercedes, TX called Estero Llanos Grande State Park. This is part of the 'World Birding Center' which is south Texas: http://www.worldbirdingcenter.org/. This series of sites is catering to birders from the world over, and it quickly became clear why. At this first state park, we walked up to the entrance, and there was a deck overlooking a wetland area, a dry erase board with birds seen that day, a docent volunteer guide and park ranger to help you i.d. birds, and 2 very nice spotting scopes for anyone to use. The birds were indeed fantastic, and we took a few loop hikes through the park to see what we could see. A number of new life listers were added by both of us. Here are some pictures, taken with a point-and-shoot, so please forgive the limited quality...


A Pauraque


This is a Green Kingfisher; terrible picture, but my favorite new bird of the whole trip, so I had to include it!


White-faced cormorant (spreading its wings) and Anhinga (background)


Great Kiskadee


Vermilion flycatcher

So you get the idea, even if the photos are suboptimal. Some day, we'll invest in real photographic equipment, because Ann and I both love photography. In the meantime, we'll let the digital world evolve a bit further and eventually, get some optics that can do these birds justice.

Our second stop was at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, another birding center, but we were late, the border patrol was on patrol and we saw only a golden fronted ladder backed three toed woodsapsucker (jk) and heard some very strange sounds (true!) as we hiked and ran in the dusk back to the car.

We drove in the dark past ambulances and police cars to Laredo.

Triple T; Thanksgiving Trip to Texas

OK, it was really a pre-Thanksgiving trip, but this voyage has a history. About a year ago, Ann and I realized we were doing a lot of traveling, but very little with each other. So, I decided to tag along on one of Ann's professional trips to New Mexico. Bought a ticket and everything, when the parental world spiralled downward, beginning with Betty's fall at our house at Thanksgiving. Long story short, we cancelled that trip, but got vouchers for less $ to be used within a year on American Airlines. Hmmm...with time running out, we realized the only window left in our busy schedules was the patch of days before Thanksgiving. Since we were heading up and west for Christmas, and to the Little's for Thanksgiving, we decided to look southward for a dose of warm weather, and what? birding?

Then I remembered the wonderful time had at an ESA meeting in San Antonio years ago. And the flight out of Knoxville was just a hair over the value of our vouchers. Then Ann met a serious birder at a conference who had several recommendations for Texas birdwatching. Early Saturday morning at the crack of dawn, with the Larry Little taxi service, off we flew to San Antonio. Hopped in a rental car and headed for Corpus Christi and Padre Island National Seashore.

Above is where we stayed; the George Blucher house in Corpus Christi. The neighborhood is not the greatest, but we have nothing but good things to say about the proprietors and the B&B itself. Especially the second B! Breakfasts here were outrageously good and large. In fact, so large, I started referring to them as brudinner...breakfast, lunch and dinner, caloriewise. I wish we had more pictures of each dish for you, but they came in 3 courses; a fruit course of some kind (e.g., grilled pineapple drizzled with syrup and covered with almonds, with blueberries scattered around and nutmeg), a main course (e.g., egg and cheese souffle), followed by a dessert (e.g., bananas foster, or blackberry cobbler), accompanied by juice, coffee, and croissants. Is that enough for breakfast?

Sunday, it was off to Padre Island, where we enjoyed the shore birds, Ann more than I, as she tried to resolve lingering doubts about the differents between knots and have nots; least sandpipers and most sandpipers; herons and hair-offs (baldpates?); caracaras and white tailed hawks. On the way to Padre Island, we caught this nice view of an osprey, eating his own brunch...


Here are a couple of pictures at the beach.



That evening, after a full day of scrutinizing shorebirds, we were hungry (no lunch helped...) and stopped at Snoopy's (85% approval rating on UrbanSpoon) and had nice seafood in an even nicer location. A couple of pics to give you the flavor of the evening...