Day 1 Texas Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival and Trip!

I am super excited to be attending the Rio Grande Bird Festival! Not only have I never been to Texas, but I’ve also never been to a birding festival with birding friends. The first friend is Amy, who I met on my New England bird tour. We’ve kept in touch and she lives in Houston. The other friend is Kim, who I met on a San Jacinto day trip with Sea & Sage, my local Audubon society.

On Saturday, I flew to Houston, where Amy lives. On Sunday, Amy and I drove to Harlingen and checked into an Airbnb (much cheaper than the festival hotel and very affordable when split three ways). We’ve arrived early to do a little pre-festival birding.

I’ve been so busy, I was literally studying Texas birds on the plane ride… First, we went to Hugh Ramsey Park. This is a very nice park with feeders and bird blinds. The very first bird that I saw was the gorgeous Green Jay. This is one of the birds I was most excited to see! And of course it was a Life Bird.

The birds seemed especially cooperative today–even the ones that weren’t at the feeders.

A Black-crested Titmouse sat out on a bare branch and cocked its head at us a few times.
A couple of Chachalacas wandered by the parking lot.
A Long-billed Thrasher thrashed around in the underbrush before skipping across the path. I LERVED this guy–it looks like a Hermit Thrush and a Curve-billed Thrasher had a baby.
A Buff-bellied Hummingbird fed from the red flowers of native Turk’s Caps, then sat on a branch.

One of the things I noticed was how many dragonflies, damselflies, and butterflies were flitting around. Compared to the EU/UK–and even Cali–they were all over the place! I managed to get some shots when a few were still.

Other Life Birds:

789: Plain Chachalaca

790: Buff-bellied Hummingbird

791: Golden-fronted Woodpecker

792: Green Jay

793: Black-crested Titmouse

794: Long-billed Thrasher

Then on Monday morning, we got up early before I had to spend the day working (boo). We went to Estero Llano Grande State Park. They have a very nice shop and I bought Kenn Kaufman and Jim Brock’s Field Guide to the Butterflies of North America! Woo-hoo, I’m on my way to being a butterfly nerd now…

Common Pauraques are known to frequent this park. One of the Park Rangers, Javier, told us that he was on his way to do a Pauraque check so we joined him. Along the way, a couple of other birders joined us and we joked we were having a Pauraque Party. Javier told us which areas of underbrush to scan, but none of us were able to locate one.

Amy and I wandered around. We spent a good 10 minutes trying to ID a waterfowl that ended up being–you’re not going to believe it–a DUCK DECOY!! With the duck decoy were Black-necked Stilts, Roseate Spoonbills, Green-, Cinnamon-, and Blue-wing Teals, and Black-belled Whistling Ducks.

Can you spot the decoy?

Speaking of all these borbs, I did say to Amy a few times, “Aren’t you impressed with my bird ID skills?” I was SUCH a newb on the tour we went on! She said she was indeed impressed and that I’ve learned a lot. We are, what I would call, compatible birders? Although, I’m not sure that there’s situations where birders bird together and don’t get along? Example:

Me: “That sounded like a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.”

Amy: “Yeah it did!”

And:

Amy: “Was that a Yellowlegs?”

Me: “Sure did sound like it.”

Although I didn’t get any Life Birds at this location, we had a whopping 37 species! The sun and lack of shade were getting to us, and we discussed whether to bail or if we should visit one last area that was shady. We opted for the shade and on the way there, someone let us know a Pauraque had been spotted! So we ended up seeing this silly little dude!! LOOK AT THAT FACE!!