Yellow-green Vireo at National Butterfly Center, 6/24/15

I'm a little late in posting this one.  The spring and early summer has been great for butterflies so I was checking them out at the National Butterfly Center when I distantly heard the "viree-ee...viree-oh' song of a Yellow-green Vireo.  I chased it down several times before I finally got some poor shots of it in the tepaguajes west of the bird feeding station.  A couple of other birders got to see it but it was never reported again.  Since then another was photographed at Quinta Mazatlan and a third at the more expected Resaca de la Palma.

Yturria Brush, 6/7/15

This morning I made my annual early summer trip to Yturria Brush unit of the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR to get my Hidalgo County Varied Bunting for the year.  I found one about a mile up the trail just before the thick brushy damp spot.

As usual, Painted Buntings were much easier to find.

This Crested Caracara was more interested in preening than he was worried about me and allowed me to circle around through the brush and get a decent shot.

A real surprise was this Yellow-breasted Chat.  I guess we can count this as a summering bird?  I had a point blank shot but was slow on the draw so this was all I could get.

Otherwise it was just a bunch of scruffy tired parents and babies.  Here's a young Black-throated Sparrow.

All of the Brown-crested Flycatchers looked a little worn.

I think this may be a young Long-billed Thrasher as it has a pale gape.

There were plenty of other things to look at like this baby Texas Tortoise.

And dragonflies like Four-striped Leaftail, Halloween Pennant and Checkered Setwing.

Here's my list for the day.

Snowy Egret 1
Turkey Vulture  1
Swainson's Hawk  1
Common Ground-Dove  2
White-winged
Dove  20
Mourning Dove  8
Golden-fronted Woodpecker  1
Crested Caracara 1
Brown-crested Flycatcher  8
Western Kingbird  1
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 1
White-eyed Vireo  5
Verdin  8
Bewick's Wren  2
Long-billed Thrasher 6
Northern Mockingbird  15
Yellow-breasted Chat  
Olive Sparrow  4
Lark Sparrow  1
Black-throated Sparrow  5
Northern
Cardinal  2
Pyrrhuloxia  6
Blue Grosbeak  1
Varied Bunting  1
Painted
Bunting  3
Great-tailed Grackle  10