Valley Stuff

I've been all up and down the Valley this week but haven't seen anything spectacular. While guiding some nice people from England we did manage to see the Rock Wren at Anzalduas County Park. He's been hanging out in the rocks to the south of the spillway as you enter the park.



Earlier in the week I checked out the boardwalk at the SPI convention center in hopes of finding the Nelson's (Sharp-tailed) Sparrow found last Sunday. I had no luck but found some photogenic birds, like this Roseate Spoonbill.



And this Reddish Egret.



Here's a White Ibis.



I have about maxed out my camera's photographic abilities, save using a tripod and remote release, on this Black-bellied Plover.



I think these are Long-billed Dowitchers based on the rounded back.



This guy has been hanging around for several years.

Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, 11/21/09

I went to Bentsen this morning to look for the Rose-throated Becard seen yesterday. No one I ran into saw it today but I finally got the Allen's Hummingbird on my year list. This bird is spending its third consecutive winter at Bentsen.



This male Northern Parula has been seen several times over the last couple of weeks.



Bentsen is one of the best places in the Valley for Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet.



Ten or more years ago there was a smudgy faced yellowish oriole at Bentsen that was assumed to be a hybrid of Altimira and Audubon's Oriole. It was lovingly referred to as "Smudge". Since then there has alway been a smudgy oriole around except now they're oranger than the oringinal. This is "Son of Son of Smudge" (at least).



I need to start myself a butterfly list. I saw two new ones this morning. This is my first (north of Mexico) Pavon Emperor.



I don't really care to look at grass skippers too much as they hardly qualify as butterflies. But some of the spread-wing skippers are pretty cool. This is my first White-patched Skipper.



Mottled Duck 2
Blue-winged Teal 4
Ring-necked Duck 2
Plain Chachalaca 20
Pied-billed Grebe 2
Neotropic Cormorant 2
Anhinga 3
Black Vulture 5
Turkey Vulture 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Common Moorhen 4
American Coot 150
White-winged Dove 1
Inca Dove 4
White-tipped Dove 5
Buff-bellied Hummingbird 1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
Ruby-throated/Black-chinned Hummingbird 1
Allen's Hummingbird 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 10
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 8
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet 4
Vermilion Flycatcher 1
Great Kiskadee 10
White-eyed Vireo 1
Blue-headed Vireo 2
Green Jay 20
Black-crested Titmouse 1
House Wren 8
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 6
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 25
Northern Mockingbird 1
Long-billed Thrasher 1
Orange-crowned Warbler 12
Northern Parula 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 2
Black-and-white Warbler 2
Olive Sparrow 2
Northern Cardinal 2
Great-tailed Grackle 15
Altamira Oriole 1

Hagerman NWR, 11/19/09

On the return trip from Missouri after celebrating my dad's 80th birthday, Honey and I decided to check out Hagerman NWR in Grayson County near Dennison. What a wonderful birding area! We spend four hours there enjoying the waterfowl and sparrows. There was a large flock of about a thousand geese which provided an opportunity to take side-by-side photos of Ross' and Snow Geese.





The best bird of the afternoon was this unexpected female Rusty Blackbird in a receding mud puddle on the road to the Crow Hill Trail. State bird #517! Rusty Blackbirds are in big trouble across the country with estimates of more than 80% of the population gone for reasons unknown.





And of course there were the sparrows. I love sparrows and they are not too diverse here in the RGV. But we had ten species yesterday afternoon at Hagerman including beautiful Harris' Sparrows. Unfortunately they always like to have a twig or two in front of them.



And White-crowned Sparrow.



And Field Sparrow.



And Song Sparrow.



And Swamp Sparrow.



Greater White-fronted Goose 50
Snow Goose 1000
Ross's Goose 100
Canada Goose 7
Gadwall 20
Mallard 30
Northern Shoveler 20
Northern Pintail 200
Green-winged Teal 200
Redhead 100
Ring-necked Duck 10
Lesser Scaup 20
Bufflehead 4
Red-breasted Merganser 1
Pied-billed Grebe 2
American White Pelican 15
Double-crested Cormorant 300
Great Blue Heron 15
Great Egret 5
Black Vulture 5
Turkey Vulture 20
Red-tailed Hawk 1
American Coot 50
Black-bellied Plover 1
Killdeer 15
Greater Yellowlegs 10
Least Sandpiper 70
Dunlin 3
Wilson's Snipe 3
Bonaparte's Gull 150
Franklin's Gull 1
Herring Gull 1
Herring Gull (American) 200
Mourning Dove 30
Belted Kingfisher 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 5
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 5
Eastern Phoebe 2
Loggerhead Shrike 1
American Crow 25
Carolina Chickadee 3
Carolina Wren 5
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 3
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 50
American Pipit 50
Yellow-rumped Warbler 3
Field Sparrow 8
Vesper Sparrow 2
Savannah Sparrow 5
Fox Sparrow 3
Song Sparrow 10
Lincoln's Sparrow 2
White-throated Sparrow 10
Harris's Sparrow 15
White-crowned Sparrow 15
Dark-eyed Junco 5
Northern Cardinal 3
Red-winged Blackbird 200
meadowlark sp. 10
Rusty Blackbird 1
Brewer's Blackbird 20
American Goldfinch 3

Two more butterflies.

The past two mornings I've had the privilege to assist famous birder and author, Jon Dunn, with his warbler workshop presented as part of the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival. The warblers have been a bit thin these two days but we did find some cool butterfles. This Great Purple Hairstreak at Anzalduas was new one for me.



Another new one for me, north of Mexico, was this beat up Many-banded Daggerwing I found at Frontera. What's really cool is that is was a life butterfly for Jon. This is a real honor for me considering that Jon Dunn has found literally thousands of life birds for people throughout the years.

Butterflies are picking up!

During the last week or two the butterfly diversity in the Rio Grande Valley is definitely on the upswing. This brilliant Ruddy Daggerwing has been present at Frontera Audubon thicket for the past couple of days.



There were a couple of cute Red-bordered Pixies at Anzalduas this morning.



Here's a Gulf Fritilary from Frontera.



And a Variegated Fritilary.



And a buhzillion Queens continue at Frontera.



When I moved to the Valley a little over fifteen years ago I bought a little Kapok tree. It lived in a pot for half of that time and eventually got put in the ground when I moved to Weslaco. This scawny little tree finally put out a couple of flowers. Prettiest Kapok flowers I've ever seen.

Sugar House Pond, 11/7/09

I've recently discovered the Sugar House Pond on FM 1425 a mile north of Hwy 107 has water once again. And when it has water with mudflats, it's the best place in Hidalgo county for shorebirds. I visited a couple of days ago and scored 15 shorebird species, the most I've ever seen at one site in Hidalgo County.

The Sugar House is a sugar refinery for sugar cane grown in the area. Looks like a smoke belching monstrosity from a Miyasaki movie.



Lots of birds.



Best birds were five Black-bellied Plovers, ten Semipalmated Plovers, a lone Snowy Plover and two Dunlin. These are all easy to see on the coast but are tough to get here in land-locked Hidalgo county. Here's some black-bellies.



Greater White-fronted Goose 1
Northern Shoveler 50
Green-winged Teal 120
Ruddy Duck 10
Snowy Egret 1
Tricolored Heron 1
Northern Harrier 1
Merlin 1
Black-bellied Plover 5
Snowy Plover 1
Semipalmated Plover 10
Killdeer 1
Black-necked Stilt 1
American Avocet 46
Greater Yellowlegs 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 1
Long-billed Curlew 2
Western Sandpiper 200
Least Sandpiper 400
Dunlin 2
Stilt Sandpiper 250
Long-billed Dowitcher 250
Wilson's Phalarope 2
Horned Lark 2
American Pipit 2
Savannah Sparrow 1
Red-winged Blackbird 200
Great-tailed Grackle 100

Yturria Brush, Lower RGV NWR, 11/3/09

Checked out the Yturrias Brush tract of the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR for the first time this morning. This area of Tamaulipan thorn-scrub is located west of La Joya on Hwy 83 just east of the Hidalgo County line. I was hoping to get some good desert stuff for Hidalgo County as it looks like a good place for Black-tailed Gnatcatchers and maybe (in summer) Varied Bunting. It also looks like a good place for wintering things like Green-tailed Towhee and Sage Thrasher. But this morning the best thing I could find was four Hermit Thrushes.



Of course the usual desert suff was there like Black-throated Sparrow and Pyrrhuloxia (and bushels of mockingbirds).





My first White-fronted Geese of the season flew over.



And there were some interesting invertebrates lik this Empress Laelia.



And this big orb-weaver spider. I gues that's what it is.



When I got home I saw my first Theona Checkerspot out in my butterfly garden.



So maybe no great birds but still a fun morning at a place that I'll check out again in a few weeks.

Greater White-fronted Goose 36
Double-crested Cormorant 2
Black Vulture 2
Turkey Vulture 2
Northern Harrier 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
White-tailed Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 2
Mourning Dove 8
Greater Roadrunner 2
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 1
Eastern Phoebe 2
White-eyed Vireo 3
Barn Swallow 10
Verdin 7
House Wren 18
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 8
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 9
Hermit Thrush 4
Northern Mockingbird 18
Curve-billed Thrasher 1
Orange-crowned Warbler 18
Cassin's Sparrow 1
Black-throated Sparrow 2
Northern Cardinal 3
Pyrrhuloxia 3

Tropical Parula at Anzalduas, 11/2/09

This morning I coaxed Honey out of our nice warm bed on her day off to go birding at Azalduas County Park south of Mission. It was a magnificent, cool clear morning. We started by walking the large field at the entrance where we were able to flush a couple of Sprague's Pipits, my first of the fall. We then walked a lap through the trees scaring up an adult Gray Hawk and finally finding a decent flock of wintering passerines with Orange-crowned, Black-and-white and Yellow-throated Warblers. I struck out on the usual Northern Beardless-Tyrannulets. We then drove to the west end of the park above the dam. Checking out the grove of trees behind the cable near the dam I was happy to find this Tropical Parula. It appears to have a bit of an eye-crescent which is not uncommon for Tropical Parulas down here.





While I was digging out up the Tropical Parula, Honey spotted a Merlin on top on the dam. We then walked north along the edge of the water and turned up the resident Black Phoebe. There wasn't much going on below the dam All in all, the park was a bit slow but it was still a good morning of birding.



Pied-billed Grebe 1
Neotropic Cormorant 1
Double-crested Cormorant 3
Anhinga 1
Snowy Egret 1
Black Vulture 3
Turkey Vulture 60
Osprey 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Gray Hawk 1
Merlin 1
American Coot 15
Spotted Sandpiper 1
Least Sandpiper 1
Rock Pigeon 50
Mourning Dove 2
Inca Dove 10
Common Pauraque 1
Ringed Kingfisher 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 6
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 3
Black Phoebe 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
Vermilion Flycatcher 1
Great Kiskadee 8
Couch's Kingbird 1
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 1
White-eyed Vireo 1
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Green Jay 10
Bank Swallow 1
Cave Swallow 3
Barn Swallow 200
Black-crested Titmouse 3
House Wren 3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 12
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 5
Northern Mockingbird 3
Sprague's Pipit 2
Orange-crowned Warbler 8
Tropical Parula 1
Yellow-throated Warbler 1
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 6
Lincoln's Sparrow 1
Eastern Meadowlark 1
meadowlark sp. 72
Great-tailed Grackle 2
Lesser Goldfinch 4