Hwy 2221, Sparrow Road, 1/27/08

I spent three hours walking and driving along Hwy 2221 also known as Sparrow Road and got precious little to show for it. This is where we normally find desert species in Hidalgo County. But the fall was so dry that there's very little to eat out there and consequently there's few birds. Last winter I found some neat stuff like Green-tailed Towhee and Sage Thrasher but not this year. Unusual were high numbers of Black-throated Sparrows (38) and Pyrrhuloxia (70). In fact I pished in 25 in one field. Here's few of them with a Lark Bunting.



Lark Bunting is not always easy to find down here.



Black Vulture 3
Harris's Hawk 5
White-tailed Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
American Kestrel 3
Merlin 1
Mourning Dove 15
Inca Dove 3
Common Ground-Dove 5
Greater Roadrunner 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 2
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 2
Loggerhead Shrike 2
Horned Lark 2
Verdin 3
Cactus Wren 3
Bewick's Wren 3
House Wren 3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Northern Mockingbird 25
Curve-billed Thrasher 2
Orange-crowned Warbler 4
Cassin's Sparrow 1
Vesper Sparrow 7
Lark Sparrow 5
Black-throated Sparrow 38
Lark Bunting 10
Savannah Sparrow 25
Northern Cardinal 6
Pyrrhuloxia 70
Red-winged Blackbird 2
Great-tailed Grackle 10
House Sparrow 5

Edinburg Scenic Wetlands WBC, 1/20/08

Woke up this clear, frosty morning in Weslaco and decided to head up to Edinburg Scenic Wetlands to get the Wood Ducks for my year list. Though this branch of the World Birding Center has been open quite a while this was my first time up there. I am impressed! What a marvelous birding park! There's a couple of lakes that collect effluent from the nearby Edinburg sewerage treatment plant and a very large butterfly garden with a water feature along with a nice interpretive center.



First bird in the parking lot was this Yellow Warbler, one of eight warbler species for the morning. Yellow Warbler is supposed to rarely winter in the Valley but they have been here the past two winters along with several at Delta Lake for the past four winters.



Back behind the interpretive center, at the water feature, a warbler popped up wagging his tail. My second ever Hidalgo Co. Palm Warbler.



Then I spent time scoping the lake getting some interesting stuff like Fulvous Whistling Duck, Cinnamon Teal, Green Heron, Sora, Green Kingfisher, but no Wood Ducks. Back out in the butterfly garden I see a yellow flash and after a little searching see my first Hidalgo County Audubon's Oriole (#332). It had been reported a few weeks earlier.



Then another yellow flash and here's another of several Orchard Orioles wintering in the Valley this year.



Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 1500
Fulvous Whistling-Duck 2
Gadwall 12
Blue-winged Teal 75
Cinnamon Teal 1
Northern Shoveler 30
Green-winged Teal 25
Ruddy Duck 166
Plain Chachalaca 1
Least Grebe 40
Pied-billed Grebe 10
Eared Grebe 3
Neotropic Cormorant 40
Double-crested Cormorant 25
Anhinga 5
Great Blue Heron 10
Great Egret 15
Snowy Egret 15
Little Blue Heron 3
Tricolored Heron 3
Green Heron 5
Black-crowned Night-Heron 50
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron 1
Turkey Vulture 1
Sora 1
Common Moorhen 30
American Coot 20
Killdeer 15
Black-necked Stilt 5
Spotted Sandpiper 3
Greater Yellowlegs 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 3
Long-billed Curlew 2
Least Sandpiper 50
Long-billed Dowitcher 6
Wilson's Snipe 1
Ring-billed Gull 8
Caspian Tern 1
Common Ground-Dove 5
Buff-bellied Hummingbird 1
Ringed Kingfisher 2
Green Kingfisher 2
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
Great Kiskadee 10
White-eyed Vireo 3
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Cave Swallow 12
House Wren 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 6
Northern Mockingbird 8
Long-billed Thrasher 6
Curve-billed Thrasher 2
American Pipit 50
Orange-crowned Warbler 20
Nashville Warbler 1
Yellow Warbler 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler 20
Palm Warbler 1
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 1
Wilson's Warbler 1
Lincoln's Sparrow 2
Northern Cardinal 10
Pyrrhuloxia 5
Red-winged Blackbird 40
Great-tailed Grackle 7
Orchard Oriole 1
Audubon's Oriole 1
Lesser Goldfinch 3
House Sparrow 1

Frontera Audubon Thicket, 1/13/07

This afternoon was too pretty to stay in the house so I went over to Frontera for a couple of hours of birding. There was nothing fantastic but for a few seconds I thought this Black-throated Green Warbler had a yellow breast making it a Townsend's Warbler. As you can see it's just a drab Black-throated Green.



Audubon's Yellow-rumped Warbler is usually quite uncommon in winter down here, maybe one out of every fifty yellow-rumps. There's been a lot more of them this winter.



Mr. Yellow-throated Warbler has been easy to see lately.



A warm sunny afternoon and two Qeens can no longer contain themselves.



Plain Chachalaca 22
Turkey Vulture 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
Inca Dove 8
White-tipped Dove 6
Buff-bellied Hummingbird 1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 5
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1
Great Kiskadee 6
White-eyed Vireo 2
Blue-headed Vireo 2
Black-crested Titmouse 3
Carolina Wren 1
House Wren 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 3
Northern Mockingbird 4
Long-billed Thrasher 1
Curve-billed Thrasher 1
Orange-crowned Warbler 4
Yellow-rumped Warbler 1
Black-throated Green Warbler 1
Yellow-throated Warbler 1
Ovenbird 2
Common Yellowthroat 1
Wilson's Warbler 1
Northern Cardinal 10
American Goldfinch 1
House Sparrow 5

Zone-tailed Hawk at Anzalduas County Park, 1/07/08

I went over to Anzalduas County Park to get a few things for my 2008 Hidalgo County yearlist. This Zone-tailed Hawk was a nice surprise. It had been seen several weeks earlier.







Gray Hawks nest every summer at Anzalduas. Here's a juvenal plumaged bird.



The American Bittern was still present in the pond at the entrance to the park.



There was also a Black Phoebe, Eastern Bluebird, Blue-headed Vireo, Pine Warbler and this guy.



A Burrowing Owl has returned to nearby Ganjeno for the third year in a row.

New Year's Birding and Back up to 500

Honey and I started the new year with cold blustery trip out to Laguna Atascosa NWR and South Padre Island. We didn't see anything unusual but still got 98 species to start the new year with. Here's Mr. Green Jay from Laguna Atascosa.



I had one last day off before returning to the shackles of teaching (actually I have very nice students but I'd rather be birding) so I decided to head up to Sal del Rey to see what was going on. Well, the water was very low with hardly andy birds at all so I decided to check out a few other places. I found this Say's Phoebe by the Hargil Reservoir. There seems to be quite a few of them in the Valley this winter.



This Northern Waterthrush was at the wet spot on Rio Beef Yards Rd. Normally rare in winter, I've seen three of them this season and heard of several others.



As I was watching the waterthrush a movement nearby caught my attention. Pretty cool!



One last stop at the big pond by the "sugar house" on HWY 1425. That's they they call the sugar refinery where they process sugar cane. I walked up the steep dike, peered into the pond and was surprised to see hundreds of geese and waterfowl, Then several Canada Geese Cought my attention. I snapped a few pics before the flock lifted. While checking the photos at home I could see the geese were smaller than the nearby White-fronted Geese. They were Cackling Geese, the expected species in the Valley. I had not seen any since they were spit from Canada Goose a few years ago so this was a life bird for me and now my Texas list is back to 500.