Progreso Lakes yard, 1/25/19

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy so I wanted to go somewhere today.  But I kept seeing birds in our Progreso Lakes yard evrytime I looked out the window so I just stayed put in the yard.  Our bird bath in our little native brush patch was particularly busy.  I take a lot of pride in this.  Just two years ago this was nothing but St. Augustine grass.  Now I have a little diverse community of native plants, insects, reptiles and birds.  My wintering Lincoln's Sparrow was joined by a second today.

Six species of warblers came in for a dip.  Here's a Wilson's Warbler.

This was our first Nashville Warbler of the year but the shot through the window wasn't too great.

The Common Yellowthroat is usually in our neighbor's yard.

Hard to tell how many Yellow-rumped warblers visited.

I think this is the "taiga" subspecies of Orange-crowned Warbler.

The House Wren that owns the brush patch was joined by a Carolina Wren.

One of the Black-crested Titmice foraged in the potato tree.

This Blue-headed Vireo has been a regular in the yard lately.

This young Vermilion Flycatcher was across the resaca today but was in the front yard yesterday.

Out on the resaca we had our first Northern Pintail of the year.

Plenty of night-herons and cormorants on the other side.

Finally got a Fulvous-whistling Duck for the year.

Finished the morning with 62 species.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (fulgens)  1500

Fulvous Whistling-Duck  1

Muscovy Duck (Domestic type)  3

Blue-winged Teal  2

Northern Pintail  1

Lesser Scaup  2

Plain Chachalaca  1

Pied-billed Grebe  1

Eurasian Collared-Dove  3

Inca Dove  4

Common Ground-Dove  2

Mourning Dove  30

Black-chinned Hummingbird  1

Buff-bellied Hummingbird (Northern)  1

Common Gallinule (American)  1

American Coot (Red-shielded)  1

Caspian Tern  1

Neotropic Cormorant  20

Double-crested Cormorant  4

American White Pelican  13

Great Blue Heron (Blue form)  1

Snowy Egret  9

Cattle Egret (Western)  11

Green Heron  1

Black-crowned Night-Heron  11

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  5

Roseate Spoonbill  3

Turkey Vulture  5

Osprey (carolinensis)  1

White-tailed Kite  1

Red-shouldered Hawk (lineatus Group)  1

Red-tailed Hawk  1

Ringed Kingfisher  1

Golden-fronted Woodpecker (Northern)  3

Ladder-backed Woodpecker  1

Eastern Phoebe  1

Vermilion Flycatcher  1

Great Kiskadee  2

Tropical Kingbird  1

Loggerhead Shrike  1

Blue-headed Vireo  1

Green Jay (Green)  2

Tree Swallow  1

Black-crested Titmouse  2

House Wren (Northern)  1

Carolina Wren  1

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1

Ruby-crowned Kinglet  1

Northern Mockingbird  1

European Starling  8

Lark Sparrow  1

Lincoln's Sparrow  2

Red-winged Blackbird  80

Bronzed Cowbird (Bronzed)  1

Bronzed/Brown-headed Cowbird  2

Great-tailed Grackle  1

Orange-crowned Warbler  3

Nashville Warbler  1

Common Yellowthroat  1

Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)  4

Yellow-throated Warbler  1

Wilson's Warbler  2

House Sparrow  2

Estero Llano Grande State Park, 1/7/18

Decided to run over to Esterto today to fill in a few holes on my new year list.  Even though it's only about five miles away I don't get over there too often.  With the warm winter we have been enjoying, the place was crawling with wintering migrants including some uncommon ones.  Best was this Wood Thrush at the drip in the Tropical Zone.  Usually they are a few hundred miles farther south this time of year.

Also present at the drip was an Ovenbird and a Gray Catbird.  Both are uncommon but regular here during winter.

Summer Tanager is also an uncommon wintering bird.  This young male was grabbing honey bees at a hummingbird feeder at the new Indigo Blind.

My goal today was to see the Topical Parula but I had to settle for Northern Parula.

Two Pine Warblers were a nice surprise.

Nashville Warblers seem to be around in higher than usual numbers.

I had heard reports of a presumed hybrid Curve-billed X Long-billed Thrasher and I guess this is it.  It certainly shows traits of each species.

A few days ago I spent a couple of hours at the Roselawn Cemetery in McAllen in an attempt to get my annual Western Tanager for Hidalgo County.  I could not find one but was happy to get the Plumbeous Vireo that has been present since early November.

Don't know how serious I'm going to be with the county list this year but it's nice to take advantage of the beautiful weather and birds that are around now.

Golden-crowned Warbler at Frontera Audubon, 1/3/19

I had to run an errand today in Weslaco so I thought why not stop at Frontera Audubon and see the long-staying Golden-crowned Warbler.  I've seen at least seven of these once very rare Mexican Warblers but not this one that has been present since early November.  It took a while but eventually I had a very close encounter with the little beauty.  In fact it was feeding within three feet of me.  Wish my camera had performed a little better.  I've got about a half million exposures on it and it seems to be slowing down a little.

The Golden-crowned Warbler is Basileuterus culicivorus.  The genus Basileuterus has some pretty cool members in Mexico and farther south.  The other one that shows up in the US is the Rufous-capped Warbler which has become a local breeder in SE Arizona and shows up rarely on the edge of the Edwards Plateau in Texas.  Don't know why we don't get a few down here as they breed not too far away in Mexico.