Texas Day Six

Our last full day in Texas took us north, and then back east to South Padre Island.

We started the day at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, home to the largest population of Ocelots in the United States. Not surprisingly, we didn't see any, but we still had a good time exploring this enormous refuge.

The drive there was pretty slow, and we didn't enter the refuge until the sun was well up. The definite highlight of the drive was a dead feral pig in the middle of the road that had attracted a pair of Crested Caracaras. Not long after, an Eastern Meadowlark singing on a telephone wire provided a very nice new bird for our life lists.

Crested Caracaras are strange looking tropical falcons that specialize in scavenging.

Once we arrived at the visitor's center and had paid our fee, we wandered over to the feeders to watch Bronzed Cowbirds, Green Jays, and a Wild Turkey join the Chachalaca crowd. There was also a pair of White-throated Sparrows, both white and tan striped, which was nice for westerners like us. A stroll around the grounds via the Kiskadee Trail brought us to a nice mixed flock of migrants that included colorful highlights like a male Painted Bunting, multiple Indigo Buntings, Orioles, and our first Yellow Warbler for the trip. An Altamira Oriole allowed us to get close to it, but I wasn't able to get a picture. Alas!

We decided to start our exploration of the refuge's roads with at rip to Alligator Pond, where a pair of Masked Ducks had been sighted. Masked Ducks are a stiff-tailed tropical duck that only rarely occurs in the United States, so we were hoping they were still sticking around. A short drive and a short stroll later, there they were! They didn't perform any amazing tricks, but they did sit and allow long examination in our scope (too far for pictures, unfortunately), even preening under their wings and exposing their distinctive white wing patches.

We were joined pretty much right away by some other birders, and together we admired the ducks on the pond, as well as a Sora that scurried around on the bank right under our noses! This was by far our best view of a Sora, ever, and we drank in the views of the generally hard-to-view rail. A few migrants popped by for a drink, and one of the other birders pointed out an alligator's head and snout sticking out at us.

An Alligator eyes us from Alligator Pond.

It's funny how all the Alligators we saw were in ponds named after them. Actually, the nature preserves in South Texas generally show little if any creativity when thinking of names. And Alligators aren't the only creativity-draining organisms, as we couldn't seem to find any trails that weren't named after Green Jays or Great Kiskadees, either.

After returning to our car, we decided to take a turn around the park's long auto-tour. This takes you through flooded fields, thorn forest, and right to the banks of Laguna Atascosa, where we hoped to see some Piping Plovers. No luck on the Piping Plovers, but we did enjoy more of the usual south Texas species, and even spied a beautiful Aplomado Falcon. The Falcon cooperatively perched on a yucca (or yucca-like plant) for minutes on end, and we had long and fairly satisfying scope views from a pretty great distance. Aplomado Falcons in Texas are part of a reintroduction program, and so are not considered "countable" by the arcane rules of the American Birding Association due to the population's tentative survival and its unnatural provenance.

After we finished the loop, we headed straight back to South Padre Island to see what the afternoon's migration may have dropped by. The result was many of the same species as the previous day, but with a few notable additions, and this time we brought our camera! Not that we got many of them on film...

As we crossed into the gardens, one of the first birds we saw was a male Audubon's Yellow-rumped Warbler, a very familiar bird from back home. That was very pleasant. Soon, though, we were admiring our first Palm Warbler and our first Blackpoll Warbler.

Our first Palm Warbler surveys its domain.

Out on the boardwalk, we again enjoyed the assemblage of waders and shorebirds, but this time we were very surprised to see a flock of about 50 birds land in a nearby isolated mangrove. Checking in our binoculars, we were pleased to find that they were Dickcissels, a rather strange cardinal-like bird that spends its winters in South America in large numbers. In fact, just that morning Libby had mentioned that she was hoping to see a Dickcissel! Talk about realized desires.

After enjoying the colorful migrants in the lots, we moved south and scoped a big flock of terns and gulls assembled near the bridge to the mainland. Among the flock we picked out a single Franklin's Gull, a long-distance migrant that passes through Texas every year on their way north, and a few of the terns proved to be our first Sandwich Terns.

That night we dined at a Mexican seafood restaurant in Port Isabel where we were serenaded by a folk singer strumming and singing tunes from Bob Dylan. Our after dinner entertainment was removing ticks, of course.

Here are the new birds for the day:
1. Masked Duck
2. Franklin's Gull
3. Sandwich Tern
4. Palm Warbler
5. Blackpoll Warbler
6. Dickcissel
7. Eastern Meadowlark
Aplomado Falcon (cool to see)

Saturday hosted our highest diversity of species for a day - we had 112 total. That's not bad considering we weren't making an effort to see a high number of species. Pictures for the day can be found here: Texas Day Six.

Texas Day Five

Our first dawn in Brownsville found us scanning telephone wires for crows (none seen, unfortunately) as we made our way to Sabal Palm Audubon Center -- basically the southernmost tip of Texas.

Sabal Palm was the place I was anticipating visiting most eagerly on the trip. Not only does it attract great birds, but its relict Sabal Palm forest has a decidedly tropical character. As you walk the trail, you can gaze up at filtered sunlight streaming through the fronds above and illuminating the tall straight trunks wrapped in vines. It's pretty awesome, and right up there with Santa Ana NWR as the coolest forest we viewed on our trip.

I assume the classic birding pose. Posed, of course. There's no bird above me.

This was our windiest morning of the trip, which definitely affected bird activity. Still, we saw some neat species. Many of the resident specialties came into the feeders, including one that's actually rare this far south in the Rio Grande Valley - an Audubon's Oriole. On the trails, we found our first Black-and-White Warbler and Blue-headed Vireo ever, while also enjoying a spattering of other common migrants.

As the morning wore on, we meandered back to the car to plan the rest of the day. At the time, we were mulling two options. First, we could take a road to Boca Chica beach and look for shorebirds and grassland specialties along the way. Option two was that we could drive out to South Padre Island where almost all of the same birds were possible, plus South Padre Island is known as a famous migrant trap.

The promise of eastern warblers being too hard to resist, we headed for the island. From the freeway, we were able to see our first ever (and, it turned out, only ever so far) White-tailed Hawk perched on a fence. Incidentally, we didn't see a single Red-tailed Hawk the whole trip! Quite a change from California freeways, where they are so common.

We couldn't make it to South Padre Island without a stop at the local lighthouse, however. Port Isabella's light is right off the freeway before you hit the causeway to the island, so it's a natural place to stop for lunch. We took our mid-day repast at its picnic tables and watched Tropical Kingbirds chase each other around on the neighboring telephone wires. And, of course, Libby took some nice lighthouse pictures!

Looking up at the lighthouse.

Incidentally, Port Isabel seemed like a very nice town. I definitely preferred its seaside character to South Padre Island's Vegas-like tower hotels and cut-rate T-shirt shops.

After we finished eating and using "the facilities" (a need that birders constantly must consider) we drove across the biggest bridge in Texas and headed north to the Convention Center. When we pulled in, the parking attendant gruffly redirected us to a neighboring sandy beach for parking. It turns out there was a big motorcycle convention beginning that afternoon, and the parking was all reserved for its attendees. No matter, a little extra walking was a small price to pay for the possibility of eastern migrants. Still, as we walked through the crowd of leather-clad bikers, we kept our expectations low. A local toting an impressively long camera lens had told us in the parking lot that migration was really slow today. Just a few Nashville Warblers and Tennessee Warblers. Oh, and a Palm Warbler. The Palm Warbler would be a new bird for us, but the others we'd seen before quite a bit on the trip.

It turns out a slow day at South Padre Island is nothing to sneer at, leaving us only that much more in awe of a fast one. Just that afternoon, between the Convention Center and the similarly vegetated Sheepshead Lot further south, we had three new warblers: a Chestnut-sided male (Libby's favorite warbler for the trip!), Northern Waterthrush, and Louisiana Waterthrush. We somehow missed the Palm Warbler that day. Plus, the trees were thick with our first Baltimore and Orchard Orioles - in every possible spring plumage - and bringing us to three new Oriole species for the day! Not only that, but Rose-breasted Grosbeaks added their striking colors to the fray, and a subtley plumaged Veery hopped along next to our first Eastern Wood-Pewee. It was fantastic birding, with great views of every species.

A first spring male Orchard Oriole eating an orange in South Padre Island.

Not only are the little woody lots nice, but there's also a great boardwalk that takes you out through some high tidal flats to a strip of mangroves. I was pretty excited to see mangroves for the first time in my life, and even better, there were awesome birds to be seen out there, too. Clapper Rails showed well, something they never seem to do locally for us. We also saw our first definite Mottled Ducks, a very cute group of Wilson's Plover scurrying about on the mud flats, and our first American Golden-plover. And to top it all off, as we were getting ready to leave, two Yellow-crowned Night Herons came swooping into the Mangroves.

By the time we'd gotten our fill of migration, we were pretty tired. If it hadn't been for the most satisfying root beer floats of our lives mid-afternoon at an A&W, we would have been out for the count. Given the root-beery refreshment, however, we were good for one more adventure before we called it a night.

Next stop: parrots! South Texas hosts two established exotic species in large numbers: Green Parakeets and Red-crowned Parrots. Both are native to Mexico only a hundred or so miles south of the border, and thrive in American border urban centers throughout the valley. We have Red-crowned Parrots here in L.A., so we focused on the Green Parakeets. Our destination was a well known roosting site at the University of Texas, Brownsville where the Parakeets proved ridiculously easy to find. Pull into the parking lot in the evening, get of your car, and enjoy the commotion! We were even able to see them coming in and out of their nest holes at a nearby resaca. Plus, we saw some Red-crowned Parrots mixed in with the flock, so we had another bird for the trip!

We finished the day off at Whataburger, and then went home to remove a bunch of ticks we picked up somehow. This was one of our best days! Pictures can be found here: Texas Day Five.

Lifers for the day:
1. Mottled Duck
2. Yellow-crowned Night Heron
3. White-tailed Hawk
4. American Golden-Plover
5. Wilson's Plover
6. Green Parakeet
7. Blue-headed Vireo
8. Veery
9. Chestnut-sided Warbler
10. Black-and-White Warbler
11. Northern Waterthrush
12. Louisiana Waterthrush
13. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
14. Orchard Oriole
15. Audubon's Oriole
16. Baltimore Oriole

On the fourth day of Texas...

My true love gave to me... 90 degree weather and high humidity?

Thursday was a busy day for us, so this post will be pretty long. We drove over 150 miles from Zapata to Brownsville, with multiple stops along the way, had eight lifers and 84 species total for the day. You can skip straight to the pictures here: Texas Day Four.

To get a good start, we were up and out of the hotel room nice and early on Thursday, checking out of a bustling lobby packed with heavy machine operators packing away a warm Tex-Mex breakfast of pancakes and chorrizo. In no time at all we were zipping down the dark and mostly empty two-land highway to our first stop - a good thirty plus minutes away. The goal was to get there early because the guide book said that early morning was the best time to be there for the birds we were seeking.

Our destination was a little town called Salineño, a rustic village off Highway 83 right along the Rio Grande's banks. Its mostly gravel roads converge on a town square crowned with a small Roman Catholic parish. Once you're past the church, the main road softens to hard packed dirt and dips down a hill to the very banks of the river. From a dirt boat ramp you can stand and watch the ripply current flow past. This was a wonderful place, we realized, as we climbed out of our car into a soft subtropical morning. The lapping dark water met close-cropped grass and short bushes under light-green trees on our bank, and dense vegetation on the Mexican side.

Libby admires Mexico.

It's not just beautiful, but famous for the relatively good chances that it gives you to see two birds whose ranges really only brush the United States - Red-billed Pigeons and Muscovy Ducks. Red-billed Pigeons are dark tropical pigeons that perch mostly unseen in the crowns of trees to feed on fruit. Muscovy Ducks are a large and widespread neo-tropical species of duck that has been domesticated (the only source of domestic ducks outside of mallards) and is common in that form in parks throughout the United States. The only place where they exist in their wild form north of the border, however, is on this narrow stretch of the Rio Grande south of the Falcon Dam. The best part of the wild birds is that they're way more beautiful than their hideous domestic off-spring. They're a deep and usually uniform glossy black with less red in the facial skin than their domestic children, and startling white bright wing patches.

A few minutes after we exited our car, another birder pulled up and got out. He came over, and as we watched the river and chatted, we discovered he was a prolific birder who had seen more than 700 birds in North America, but still had not seen Muscovy Ducks. In fact, he had been to this very spot before more than a dozen times and never seen them. That was a little discouraging, to say the least.

In talking about different places he had been, he mentioned spending last winter in Escondido, California, and chasing a Dusky-capped Flycatcher up in L.A. County! So, it turned out he'd seen the Dusky-capped Flycatcher in Creek Park, and we'd even exchanged a few e-mails back then. The birding world is pretty small. At the present moment, he was working on a "big month," an attempt to see as many birds as possible in one calendar month of the year. Having seen about 350 birds so far in April, he had made the trip down to Salineño for a chance at the ducks.

I'll just take a moment to add that serious birders become very persistent in their attempts to see a desired species. Obviously Leo, the birder at Salineño, had been persistent in his pursuit of Muscovy Ducks, but another birder we met over the weekend with almost 700 North American birds on his list spent twelve hours one day while we were in Texas waiting for a "mega-rare" Crimson-collared Grosbeak to show up at a little Audubon sanctuary down the valley. The persistence usually pays off, as both Leo and this other birder got their birds, but it's illustrative of the dedication people pay this somewhat unusual hobby.

Anyway, the river was pretty active that morning. A Green Kingfisher darted around in the low shrubs on the near shore, a pair of Osprey floated above looking for fish, a big Ringed Kingfisher made sallies at fish from trees on the Mexican shore, and we saw an immense and beautiful flock of Cattle Egrets come rowing downriver. The egrets' white plumage was practically luminous in the morning gloom.

And then, finally, I glanced upstream and saw a big black duck with white patches on its wings crossing the river! Leo got on it, and was jubilant, but Libby didn't have time to see it before it flew out of sight. We waited a few minutes, and then two more came flying downstream above the trees on the far shore! Hurrah! Libby and I exchanged high fives (that's how we roll when we see a new bird) and were giddy with glee.

Our hands were still tingling from the high fives when a small flock of heavy dark pigeons came rushing in directly overhead about 20' above us and disappeared upstream. Red-billed Pigeons! This time we had high fives all around the three of us. Our grins were from ear to ear and we exulted in our good fortune. We would have been content with those poor views, but we saw both species again later on as we worked the area's trails, including a great view of a Muscovy Duck flying upstream just a few dozen feet off shore from us. A Canadian birder dropped in around that time, looking for Hook-billed Kites, and he got good looks at the birds, too, though he didn't find Hook-billed Kites in the time we were there. I guess it was a good day at Salineño.

After that, we spent some time walking the trails in the area and found our first ever Eastern Screech-Owl (a distinctive Mexican race that may be its own species) peeking out of a nest box. We also looked hard for Audubon's Orioles, whose small American range excludes the Valley south of Salineño, but we couldn't find anything but Altamiras. We revisited later in the day and found a male Varied Bunting right along the river bank in some bushes, and a flock of migrant warblers in the trees along the river. Varied Buntings are really beautiful little birds, less gaudy than a Painted Bunting, and adorned in a subtle plum-like combination of blue, purple and red.

After getting our fill of Pigeons and Ducks, we headed back upstream to Falcon Dam State Park to see if we could see some fun desert birds, especially Scaled Quail. It was getting hot by that time and the low vegetation of the area didn't provide much relief, so we did most of our birding by car. We did flush a large flock of gray quail, which were undoubtedly the Scaled Quail we were looking for, but we didn't get a good look at them and couldn't refind them in the scrub. We also saw Pyrrhuloxia, Crested Caracaras, Black Vultures, and Curve-billed Thrashers, which are all fun birds that aren't as common in the lower parts of the Valley. Our one lifer here was Northern Bobwhite, not a bird I associate with desert, but a very handsome quail none-the-less.

Also, we found a turtle!

I don't know what kind of turtle this is.

Soon we were on the road again. We made a quick roadside stop for our first definite Cave Swallows swarming around a bridge before unsuccessfully dropping by a small settlement called Chapeño. The feeders there were once famous for offering the possibility of seeing the only U.S. population of Brown Jays, but unfortunately it appeared to be inaccessible due to heavy construction going on down by the river. I think they may have been working on the border fence. Then we stopped once more at Salineño before heading to Roma for lunch. Roma's an old little border town that's sort of run down, but there are some bluffs there you can view the river from. We ate lunch in the local World Birding Center's backyard courtyard while watching Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Hooded Orioles come to the feeders.

After that we still had quite a few miles to go. We were heading to Estero Llano Grande State Park - near McAllen, the town where we had stayed the first two nights. It has extensive pools and wetlands, and at the time some Fulvous Whistling-Ducks that I thought would be fun to see. Sure enough, when we got there we talked to an employee in the visitor's center who directed us to not only the ducks, but to a day roosting Common Parauqe! Pauraques are a tropical nightjar that we would have otherwise have had to search for at night, but this way, we just had to pop out our eyes thoroughly scanning leaf litter in a small area for about half an hour before we found it. It's incredibly camouflaged, but we would have doubtlessly have found it more quickly if we had merely walked to the other side of the bush to which we were directed.

Can you find the Pauraque?

We also found the Fulvous Whistling-Ducks, and had our best look at wild Mallards for the trip. The "Mexican" Mallards found in southern Texas lack the green heads of their northern relatives, and resemble the southeastern Mottled Duck. We tried our best to turn them into Mottled Ducks, a bird we hadn't yet seen, but we failed miserably.

Our day wasn't quite over, yet, though! It was still only about five or six in the evening, and we headed straight for Brownsville to find a hotel. That turned out to be nearly an hour between the long drive and figuring out which motel to stay at, and we were really hungry by the time we ate dinner. We settled on a Denny's we could walk to from our hotel for convenience, and had the sort of food you'd expect from a Denny's.

The neat thing about our hotel was that it was right on a little resaca that hosted Laughing Gulls, domestic Muscovy Ducks, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, and at night, a secretive nocturnal mammal that I think was probably a Nutria.

List of new birds for the day (we'll do a comprehensive and annotated checklist for all the birds later):

1. Fulvous Whistling-Duck
2. Muscovy Duck
3. Northern Bobwhite
4. Red-billed Pigeon
5. Eastern Screech-Owl
6. Common Pauraque
7. Cave Swallow
8. Varied Bunting

A Texas Wednesday

For our third day in Texas, we went to the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge is termed the jewel of the refuge system for its colorful, varied and sub-tropical character. It consists of a large tract of uncut riparian forest along the Rio Grande whose tall trees are draped with long dangling streams of Spanish moss, as well as thorn scrub and still fresh water pools dotted with waterfowl.

We started early in the morning, and wandered the trails to a tall tree tower, where we watched the sun rise over a beautiful emerald canopy below us.

Libby contemplates the sunrise from the Tree Tower.

From the tower, we looked down on singing Long-billed Thrashers and Cardinals, while Kingbirds hawked insects from tall branches in the warm sunlight. It was a nice moment, made nicer by our first lifer of the day winging by above us - a single adult White Ibis on its way north from somewhere in Mexico to somewhere in the United States, above mankind's artificial borders.

After descending, we hiked a trail that took us down to the river to see what was stirring and to peek across the border. That was a great idea because we soon happened upon our first ever Olive Sparrow, a somewhat skulky inhabitant of the underbrush in the lower valley. That was especially rewarding because we had heard them singing the day before from just feet away without being able to see them. Soon we reached the river, and peaking through the thick brush we saw not only Mexico, but our first Green Kingfisher scooting across the river to perch on another bush. This was a bird that Libby's even dreamed about seeing, literally, so we were thrilled!

Me, the river, and Mexico

Other life birds fell quickly as we winded our way back to the visitor's center, with Least Grebes, Stilt Sandpipers, and even another Painted Bunting in some brush along the trail. When we got back to the Visitor's Center, we asked if they had any tips on where to find a Clay-colored Thrush, as it was one of the common Lower Rio Grande Valley specialities we'd yet to find. The friendly lady at the desk had just the place. She took us outside to a group of feeders, and pointed to a grapefruit stuck on a tree. Just sit and wait, she said, it will come to that one grapefruit there. Twenty minutes later, that's just what it did!

Clay-colored Thrush at its favorite grapefruit.

We spent some time relaxing at the active feeders talking to other birders before heading out to bird another trail to see what we could find. It was a great idea because pretty soon we found our first big flock of migrant warblers. It hosted lots of beautiful little jewels including our first ever Tennessee Warblers, Yellow-throated Warbler and Black-throated Green Warbler.

In the mid-afternoon, we reluctantly left this place, one of the best we visited in Texas, to drive west to Zapata, where we would spend the night. It was about a two hour drive, and pretty uninteresting. Libby got to sleep some of the way, and I passed the hours using our iPod to listen to music and some Chesterton. We arrived around 6:00 in the evening, checked into our motel, and headed to a local Church's chicken fast food joint.

It's only worth mentioning dinner because the place was terrifyingly dirty and poorly run, and the visit was only redeemed because we met a nice Candian trucker who thought we might have been Australian, but that in any case, we definnitely weren't from around those parts. True enough! Another highlight of Zapata, which was a peculiar roadside small town, was that it had a 7st Street. Yes, you read that right.

After that we made our only effort for a little sparrow-like bird called a White-collared Seedeater. We visited a park next to the public library in town with a pond with a lot of reeds in it that had hosted them a week earlier. Unfortunately, though, we didn't find them. We did find a House Finch - our only representative of that species for the entire week!

We ended the day with 75 species, including 14 lifers. View a collection of pictures here: Texas Day Three. The lifers were:

1. White Ibis
2. Olive Sparrow
3. Black-crested Titmouse: a fun and energetic pair of birds.
4. Green Kingfisher: hurrah! Great views at Pintail Lake.
5. Least Grebe: cute
6. Stilt Sandpiper
7. Clay-colored Thrush
8. Chimney Swift
9. Solitary Sandpiper
10. White-eyed Vireo: amazing bird
11. Black-throated Green Warbler: eye-popping!
12. Tennessee Warbler: super common
13. Yellow-throated Warbler: maybe my favorite warbler of the trip - very beautiful
14. Crested Caracara

Travelogue: Fast Food

Intrigued by the unique name and ubiquitous presence of the Whataburger chain here in Texas, Libby and I decided to favor it with our business this evening for dinner. Approaching the counter, a young woman, probably in high school or recently graduated from it, asked us for our orders. Libby asked for a Whataburger. With cheese? Yes, please. No problems, we're like old pros. After her, I asked for a number five. The conversation that followed is recorded below as accurately as I can remember it:

Young woman: All the way?

Me: What?

The young woman's face clouds - she's bewildered. I decide to come to the rescue.

Me: I'm sorry, I don't know what that means.

Young woman (relieved but still confused): Do you want everything on it?

Me: Oh, yes, sure. I'm sorry, but this is our first time in a Whataburger.

Young woman: (incredulous) Really?

Me: Yeah, we're from California and we don't have them there.

Young woman: (energetic and excited) Really? You're from California? That's awesome! I want to go there.

Me: Yes, it's very nice.

Then she gave us our receipt and we filled our drinks and sat down.

Texas Day 2

Well, our second day here in Texas was all that we could realistically have expected it to be, and maybe a little bit more. We saw 16 new birds - the most we've seen in one day's time for a really long time. Not only that, but many of the birds that we saw were birds that we've wanted to see ever since we first cracked open Libby's National Geographic Guide back in our last year of college. Back then, wonderful and beautiful birds like Great Kiskadee, Green Jays and, most of all, Painted Buntings, were the sort of birds you were just amazed existed because of their outlandish colors and patterns.

They do exist, and now we've seen them. All three of the above birds in one day, plus many more, and each a highlight deserving its own post. Of course, I won't go into the kind of detail, but I'll just sort of outline our day, and then list the new birds.

It was actually a little frustrating in the morning because we got a bit of a late start, and then realized upon arriving at our destination that we had forgotten to buy insect repellent. So, off we went to hunt some down, driving down long straight roads and wasting a good half-hour of prime birding time. It's good we got it, though, because the mosquitoes were present, and they were large, and they were voracious. So, interestingly enough, were ticks, apparently, as I picked one up from somewhere. How I managed to do that without going off-trail I have no idea.

Anyway, our main destination for the day was the Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park, and it's a great birding destination here in the lower valley. It has the great majority of the lower valley specialty birds, even Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl and Hook-billed Kite, both of which are rather difficult to find and so we were not surprised to miss them. In general, the place is a fairly large park heavily vegetated by a variety of hardwood trees, most of them fairly short, and filled in with lots of tall grass that's currently dead. It's a brown place right now, but the birds it has fill in the color. Green Jays were common, and Altimira Oriole was impossible to miss. We even saw one of the park's unique Altamira x Auduon's Oriole hybirds. Great Kiskadees called from many tree tops, and the resacas (old oxbows of previous Rio Grande courses) hosted our first Ringed Kingfishers. There's a tram to take you around the roads, and it was nice, peaceful and not too crowded with birders.

It was plenty hot and very bright, muggy and sunny. The roads don't really wind under the canopy of the trees, most of which are not very tall, so you're pretty exposed to the sun the whole time. There was a relieving breeze, though, which we very much enjoyed every time it moved through. Even the visitor's center was quite good for birding, providing us with several lifers, including Painted Bunting! and Buff-breasted Hummingbird. Also, it had our first Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, which was quite nice.

After spending about eight hours there, we headed back to McAllen, and stopped by Quinta Mazatlan, an old estate in the city that has a lot of the same birds. We found a lifer there, too, (Carolina Wren) and enjoyed better looks at some of the other specialties. Over all, we had only 48 species for the day, but when one third of those are brand new, that's a lot!

I put up some pictures! Actually, several groups of pictures:

1) Day 1 in McAllen pictures (just a few from our afternoon walk)

2) Day 2 Pictures from Bentsen (my favorite from this set is the Long-billed Thrasher video - check it out!)

New bird list:

1. Great Kiskadee
2. Plain Chachalaca
3. Long-billed Thrasher
4. White-tipped Dove
5. Altamira Oriole
6. Green Jay
7. Northern Parula (our first migrant warbler for the trip)
8. Great-crested Flycatcher
9. Buff-bellied Hummingbird
10. Broad-winged Hawk (migrating by - morning trickle, but probably a little fewer 1,000 passed over Quinta Mazatlan in the afternoon)
11. Anhinga
12. Ringed Kingfisher (Libby picked this awesome bird out for us)
13. Painted Bunting (two seen very well at the visitor's center)
14. Groove-billed Ani (a small secretive group below the hawk watch platform)
15. Ruby-throated Hummingbird (males and probably females at the visitor's center)
16. Carolina Wren (a pair at Quinta Mazatlan)

Texas Day 1

Well, we're in McAllen, Texas, now. The flights weren't too long. It was about two and a half hours to Dallas-Fort Worth, and then one hour south to McAllen from there. Still, taking into account the time change, it took the whole day to get here.

Security at LAX was crazy. The line for the American Airlines terminals was probably a good half-mile long, and took a long time to get through. We gave ourselves plenty of time, but it was still annoying. On the first flight, we spent a lot of time familiarizing ourselves with the birds we'll see here in Texas, and had a pretty good time. It was pretty uneventful until the descent, when it got a little bumpy and both Libby and I got air-sick. No time to throw up though, becuase our next plane left half-an-hour after we landed. We just barely got in the back of the line at the last boarding call!

Of course, we were still feeling motion sick when we got there, so we weren't looking forward to getting back up in the air again. Thankfully, we did pretty well on the smooth flight south, and nobody had any trouble with their cookies.

After arriving in McAllen, we rented a car and found a motel (no trouble with either of those, despite not making reservations). Then we grabbed our binoculars and headed out into the nearby residential areas for a quick look-round.

One of the things that we really like about visiting a new area is experiencing not only the new birds, but the new mixture of birds. Even though the most common birds were House Sparrows, Great-tailed Grackles, and White-winged Doves - all birds with which we're well acquainted - the particular mixture was different than California or Arizona would have hosted. In coastal southern California, Great-tailed Grackles are localized residents near bodies of fresh water like lakes in urban parks. Here, they're the most common bird, flying in and out of every tree, long black tails streaming behind. Meanwhile, every weedy patch bursts with active House Sparrows, nary a House Finch to be found among them, unlike in southern California. And White-winged Doves coo syncopatedly from every developed oak, alongside the here less common Mourning Dove.

Meanwhile, the swallows spinning above us were Purple Martins, not Northern Rough-wings like they're apt to be in California. And Inca Doves were feeding right in the middle of a quiet residential street. Along with feral Rock Pigeons and a single Common Ground-dove, we had a good number of doves and pigeons today.

Probably the most outlandish "not in California" moment, though, was when we saw a flock of ducks whirr by overhead. But these flashy and ungainly forms weren't the Mallards we'd expect to see at home, but Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, a species we've only seen once in a small flock in Arizona. Representing another example of a species with which we're familiar in a new and suddenly more common niche.

Of course, we do enjoy the new birds that we see. Libby found our first lifer at the country club - a Golden-fronted Woodpecker! This is the southern counterpart to the more widespread Red-bellied Woodpecker, which we've never seen either, and really a fun and pretty bird. It perched in a fairly distant oak, but we were still able to admire its golden nape and fore-crown, as well as its dark barred back. We'll see many more of these, certainly.

Our second new bird was a Couch's Kingbird. It was perched high in a blooming Jacaranda, but its distinctive call revealed its identity. It looks a lot like a Tropical Kingbird, which we've seen in Arizona and California, but sounds quite different.

Tomorrow, we'll explore some of the local wildlife refuges! Adios!

Cheeses

Lately Libby and I have been indulging a new culinary interest: cheese! I've always loved cheese, and so has Libby, so it's a great new hobby to explore. Though, I'm not sure eating can be a hobby. Can it? I kind of hope so.

We've always eyed the cheese island at Stater Brothers as we passed by on the way to the produce section every week, but we'd never actually stopped to get something. After some amazing Brie at Timothy's wedding, though, we realized just how spectacular the possibilities could be, so we've finally broken down and started sampling some of the rather limited options.

One of our first experiments was with Camembert. We picked it for its similarity to Brie, and it does have a similar texture and appearance. However, it's quite a bit stronger. Our variety was probably pasteurized, making it less than authentic, and Libby wasn't a big fan, and I also felt it didn't measure up to a quality Brie. This is a cheese we may want to try again, but not too soon.

Last week we were looking for another soft cheese, and browsing through Stater Brother's selections we found a soft cheese called Port Salut that looked interesting. It's a soft cow milk cheese with a bright orange rind. It's paradoxically quite pungent with a really mild flavor profile. We really enjoyed this cheese.

After we finished that, we found we had pretty much exhausted the options for soft cow milk cheese at Stater Brothers, so we decided to go with Gouda. We've gotten Gouda before, but we weren't totally impressed because we were looking for smoked Gouda to match up with Libby's happy memories of eating it for breakfast in England. When we saw that some of it was like 60% off (almost to the sell-by date) at Stater Bros, there wasn't any doubt we'd be trying it again!

It turned out to be a very strong, well aged Dutch Gouda. It's a firm and waxy cheese with a dark rind and small bubbles. It's a pretty intense flavor; it's sort of bitter, sharp with what some describe as a caramel sweetness. We enjoyed it with a Cabernet Sauvignon which was a very complimentary accompaniment.

I think I might add cheese postings to our limited repertoire of posts here on the blog. We'll see how the wind blows and the cheese ripens.

Biola Spring

This year Biola dedicated a new park on campus. They went in to the relict olive grove on the east side of campus, pruned it, built some trails, planted some benches and native grasses, and installed an enormous bridge across the creek. It's made the grove much more accessible than it used to be, and a lot of people are going there to enjoy the pleasant California weather under the shady boughs of the olives.

I like to spend a few minutes there during lunch, most days, myself, to enjoy the dappled sunshine and bubbling bird song. Common Yellowthroats and Song Sparrows sing from the reeds accompanied by the soft mournful calls of Nutmeg Mannikins, while Lesser Goldfinches, Bushtits, Yellow-rumped Warblers and female hummingbirds twitter in the canopy. I try to block out the strident chorus of House Sparrows from the nearby houses.

A female Yellow-rumped Warbler perches in a bush in the creek bed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/3361308925/in/set-72157615404913693/

Last week I brought my camera out to document the March bloom of wildflowers. When they seeded the park, they must have seeded the creekside, too, because the opposite bank was rich with California blooms. Under the trees, however, there aren't any flowers except a few Dandelions. The flowers were pretty short-lived, unfortunately, and they've now mostly been overwhelmed by other plants and some really hearty dandelions, but their short duration of their beauty merely serves to emphasize, not diminish, it's power. After all, isn't the fleeting nature of spring one of its manifold charms?

Yellow Tidy Tips

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/3361328355/

I've added all the pictures to a new Flickr set: Biola Spring.

Update!

It's been awhile since we posted here. I'm not sure why. I have started a couple of posts that I didn't feel happy enough with to publish, and I've also felt a little bit of a blogging-related malaise. What's the point?

If part of the point is keeping people who don't see us very often, but may be interested in what's going on in our lives updated than here's an update to satisfy the obligation!

This March is a bit of a drag for Libby. She isn't taking a class at Biola, anymore, but work is pretty exhausting. It seems like most of our energy revolves around her classroom.

Work is par for the course for me. Nothing too interesting is going on.

I've read a few books. I aborted a post about Dostoevsky's Memoirs from the House of the Dead. That was a very good Christmas present from Gabe and Emily. It was an interesting reflection on the experience of prisoners in a Tsarist siberian prison camp largely based, to the extent that he didn't even really change some of the characters' names, on his own time in Siberia.

I also just finished both of Flannery O'Connor's novels. It's hard to make sense of Flannery O'Connor, but she is without doubt a talented and thought-provoking author. The books themselves are incredible and really hard to describe. If more American Christian fiction was published along those lines, it would shake up some stereotypes!

Finally, we're also involved in a time consuming project in the local hills surveying remnant populations of coastal Cactus Wrens. Cactus Wrens have suffered a lot from habitat destruction and the recent fires, so the Nature Conservancy is sponsoring a region-wide effort to learn about their status and begin a long-term monitoring strategy for the birds.

We volunteered, and so we have committed all of our Saturdays to the birds for awhile. The plan is to map cactus scrub habitat on acetate overlaying Google Map satellite images. After getting all of the patches in our region mapped, we'll revisit them every couple of weekends through July. The reality is that mapping the cactus patches is a lot of work, and can be pretty difficult because of the surrounding vegetation and terrain. It's still fun, most of the time, though, and we're getting to know the local hills a bit better.

It turns out they're designed mostly to hurt and annoy people who venture off of their trails. Buyer beware!

Spring!

Southern California's winters aren't very deep, so it's sometimes hard to catch the signs that it is ending. I've been feeling very Spring-like, lately, as the chorus of resident birdsong increased, but I felt like today we were turning the corner when I saw some Northern Rough-winged Swallows hawking insects over the lake at La Mirada Park. These lightning-quick brown birds were the first spring arrivals I've seen this season - migrating north out of Central America on their way to breed here in the United States or Canada.

It's exciting to feel the pulse of the earth quicken. New signs of life were bursting all around the park this morning. I saw a Cassin's Kingbird shredding tissue paper for its nest in a nearby palm's crown. Not far away, a Common Yellowthroat broke out into full-throated song. Even the Townsend's Warblers in the park, winter visitors, warbled softly as they foraged in the bright green of a trees' renewing leaves.

It's still early, and winter hasn't gone completely, as the chorus of chipping Yellow-rumped Warblers testify, but I can already hardly wait until a flash of bright yellow will announce the arrival of our gaudier neo-tropical migrants. Orioles, Vireos and Warblers, oh my!

Southwestern Road Trip Bird List

I've been wanting to put this down here for future reference, and as a redundant record, ever since we got back from the trip. Our readers are welcome to tune out now. I'll annotate it from memory (a bit old by now).

1. Mallard (waterfowl found in three locations: Bosque del Apache, Casa Grande and Sweetwater Wetlands)
2. Green-winged Teal
3. American Wigeon
4. Northern Shoveler
5. Cinnamon Teal
6. Redhead
7. Ring-necked Duck
8. Bufflehead
9. Ruddy Duck
10. Gambel's Quail (first seen at Sweetwater Wetlands, but also seen east to Bosque del Apache)
11. Pied-billed Grebe (Arizona and Bosque del Apache)
12. Turkey Vulture (a kettle in Blythe)
13. Cooper's Hawk (uncommon throughout)
14. Harris's Hawk (Sweetwater Wetlands only)
15. Red-tailed Hawk (common along roadsides throughout southwest)
16. American Kestrel (common throughout southwest)
17. Prairie Falcon (a single bird at Casa Grande)
18. Common Moorhen
19. American Coot (common around water)
20. Rock Pigeon (anywhere there are people)
21. Mourning Dove (common all over)
22. Common Ground Dove (a small flock at Sweetwater Wetlands)
23. Anna's Hummingbird (our lone hummingbird for the trip was a single male at Sweetwater)
24. Gila Woodpecker (a couple of birds at Sweetwater)
25. Northern Flicker (common throughout low elevation wooded habitat in southwest)
26. Ladder-backed Woodpecker (same as Flicker)
27. Say's Phoebe (common through southwest)
28. Vermillion Flycatcher (a female at Casas Grande and an imm male at the Continental School near Green Valley)
29. Loggerhead Shrike (relatively common throughout southwest)
30. Common Raven (very common at all elevations)
31. Verdin (a few birds in Arizona)
32. European Starling (wherever there are people)
33. Yellow-rumped Warbler (much less common than in Southern California, but there were a few here and there in low elevations throughout our trip)
34. Canyon Towhee (uncommon throughout our trip)
35. White-crowned Sparrow (common through our trip - most abundant sparrow)
36. Yellow-headed Blackbird (large numbers at Sweetwater Wetlands)
37. Red-winged Blackbird (common around water throughout)
38. Great-tailed Grackle (common, especially in cities, throughout southwest)
39. Brown-headed Cowbird
40. House Finch (common throughout)
41. House Sparrow (wherever there are people)
42. Lark Sparrow (grassland x mesquite woodland below Santa Ritas)
43. Vesper Sparrow (same as Lark Sparrow)
44. Black-throated Sparrow (same as Lark Sparrow, also desert scrub)
45. Northern Mockingbird (common throughout)
46. Spotted Towhee (Florida Canyon area, Bosque del Apache)
47. Ruby-crowned Kinglet (very common in any forested area)
48. Green-tailed Towhee (Florida Canyon area)
49. Phainopepla (wintering birds in Carlsbad Canyon National Park and same habitat as Lark Sparrows)
50. Rufous-crowned Warbler (3 birds! in Florida Canyon) (Lifer)
51. Canyon Wren (Florida Canyon)
52. Indigo Bunting (a single female in Florida Canyon) (Lifer)
53. Lincoln's Sparrow (in brushy habitat throughout)
54. Crissal Thrasher (one bird in oak woodland in lower Florida Canyon) (Lifer)
55. Hammond's Flycatcher (Florida Canyon)
56. Kentucky Warbler (single vagrant male in Florida Canyon) (Lifer)
57. Western Bluebird (flocks in Florida Canyon and near Grand Canyon)
58. Black Phoebe (near water throughout southwest)
59. Mexican Jay (Madera Canyon)
60. Wild Turkey (Madera Canyon, Rattlesnake Springs)
61. White-winged Dove (Continental School near Green Valley - a small flock)
62. Acorn Woodpecker (Madera Canyon)
63. Northern Beardless Tyrannulet (a single bird at the Continental School near Green Valley)
64. Gray Flycatcher (Florida Wash)
65. Bridled Titmouse (Madera Canyon)
66. White-breasted Nuthatch (Madera Canyon)
67. Brown Creeper (Mexican variety) (Madera Canyon)
68. American Robin (uncommon throughout southwest)
69. Hermit Thrush (uncommon throughout southwest)
70. Townsend's Warbler (Madera Canyon in mixed flocks)
71. Chipping Sparrow (Madera Canyon)
72. Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon, Pink-sided and Gray-headed in Madera Canyon, widespread elsewhere in southwest, too)
73. Brewer's Sparrow (1 near Continental School)
74. Lesser Goldfinch (uncommon throughout southwest)
75. Pine Siskin (Madera Canyon)
76. Sandhill Crane (first seen flying over highway 10 near Wilcox, then many at Bosque)
77. Ferruginous Hawk (one near Wilcox along 10, one off highway nearer to Carlsbad in Texas)
78. Pyrrhuloxia (common in Chihuahuan desert scrub)
79. Eastern Bluebird (at a roadside rest near Guadalupe National Park)
80. Ring-billed Gull (in Carlsbad parking lots)
81. Sage Thrasher (common in Chihuahuan desert scrub of Carlsbad Caverns NP)
82. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (lifer for Libby - near Carlsbad National Park Visitor's Center)
83. Greater Roadrunner (Carlsbad NP visitor's center area and Rattlesnake Springs area)
84. Song Sparrow (Rattlesnake Springs)
85. Northern Cardinal (Rattlesnake Springs)
86. Belted Kingfisher (Rattlesnake Springs)
87. Great Horned Owl (Rattlesnake Springs)
88. Brown Thrasher (Rattlesnake Springs) (Lifer)
89. Eastern Phoebe (Rattlesnake Springs) (Lifer)
90. Merlin (Rattlesnake Springs)
91. Eurasian Collared Dove (roadsides throughout and near Grand Canyon's rim)
92. Snow Geese (Bosque)
92. Ross's Geese (Bosque)
93. Canada Geese (Bosque)
94. Bald Eagle (Bosque)
95. Northern Pintail (Bosque)
96. American Crow (Bosque)
97. Chihuahuan Raven (Bosque)
98. Common Merganser (Bosque)
99. Hooded Merganser (Bosque)
100. Gadwall (Bosque)
101. Greater Yellowlegs (Bosque)
102. Ring-necked Pheasant (Bosque)
103. Greater White-fronted Geese (Bosque)
104. Steller's Jay (Sandia Crest and Grand Canyon)
105. Mountain Chickadee (Sandia Crest and Grand Canyon)
106. Gray-crowned Rosy Finch (Sandia Crest - one Hepburn's, the rest interior birds)
107. Brown-capped Rosy Finch (Sandia Crest) (Lifer)
108. Black Rosy Finch (Sandia Crest) (Lifer)
109. (Woodhouse's) Western Scrub Jay (Grand Canyon)
110. Juniper Titmouse (Grand Canyon) (Lifer)
111. Clark's Nutcracker (Grand Canyon)
112. White-throated Sparrow (Bosque) (Lifer)
113. Meadowlark species (roadsides throughout grasslands in trip - two or three species possible if Lilian's is split as new research suggests it should be)

I hope I didn't miss anything. Not so many, but we didn't try for a big list. If I did it again I would have made time to look for wintering Larkspurs, but I'm very happy with what we did see.

Mammoth Trip

We got back Monday from a winter trip to Mammoth over the holiday weekend. It was a good trip, if short.

Photos on Flickr

Some highlights:

- The snow was really wonderful. It was dry, settled powder most of the trip. It snowed a couple of inches on Sunday, and it was dumping as we left.

- The heavy snow made our trip home a lot more interesting than normal. We needed chains from Mammoth all the way to Sherwin Grade. Snow was falling in Bishop when we arrived, and again in the Coso Junction area. Thankfully the storm was gone by the time we arrived at Cajon Pass, but we could see it accumulated on either side of the road.

- Joe Profita spent Saturday night at the cabin.

- The cabin was wonderfully comfortable, and the solitude was wonderful. Going up there in the winter is a really great way to get away from it all. There was only one other cabin occupied while we were there, and we only saw them on Monday right before they left. We didn't even know anyone else was around all day Saturday and Sunday.

- Dad and I took a night ski down up the uranium mine road, back down, and then out onto Lake Mary. It was exciting going downhill with only a few yards of track illuminated ahead of you.

- We saw a Golden Eagle right by the road on the way up! Just a couple of feet off to the left side of 395 and right on the ground. What a wonderful, enormous bird.

- We spent all of our time skiing up and around behind the cabin. Mom and Dad went to Emerald on Sunday, and Libby and I joined them in a ski up to the meadow below it on Monday before we skiied out to the car.

- It stayed around 20 degrees most of the time we were there, which was quite comfortable when you were skiing and kept the snow in great condition.

Well, there are a few memories for posterity. We definitely had a good time, over all. It was nice to take a break from school for Libby, and I also enjoyed the change of scenery.

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is an enormous rift in the middle of the Colorado plateau, and it's dramatic vistas are basically unparalleled anywhere in the world. It's one of those select places you really feel like you ought to see before you die.

It's also the sort of place that's so well known it's almost redundant to photograph or describe. I imagine the first westerners to explore it were able to fill letters and articles with many well earned superlatives of praise, but, let's face it, the audience of this blog has seen so many pictures of this spectacular act of God that they have no need to read or peruse more here.

Never the less, pens cannot rest on the laurels of their forefathers, and I press forward with mine to record our experience for our own small family's sake.

While a winter visit to the Grand Canyon is cold and carries the hazards inherent in that season, it also brings a new beauty to the red rock. Snow and ice cover the ground and rest in the boughs of the pines and junipers along the south rim, collecting temporarily in the aged rock's strata. The forest is a frosted a smooth white, and the canyon itself is dusted with powdered sugar. Entering into this fantastic landscape, Libby and I oohed and ahed from each subsequent vista. You can see for miles, especially in winter, and we gaped at every rock formation and rift as it appeared through the crystal clear air of a southwestern winter. I even felt my stomach contract and curl when we stood atop particularly precipitous buttes. It's an uncomfortable distance to the bottom, despite the iron railings.

Still, discussing it later, we both felt that the best experience of the Grand Canyon would require you entering it and getting lost in its vastness. Looking down and across this gulf in the earth is almost so overwhelming that you can't appreciate it fully. I feel like if I was in it and looking up and around at the towering cliffs I'd have more of a feel of my own small relationship to its impersonal size. Plus, that's the way I'm used to experiencing yawning heights from the Sierras, and they're sort of my benchmark for judging any similar natural wonder.

We spent our whole day droving up and down the road running along the south rim. We did take one short walk - from Yavapai Point over to the Bright Angel lodge. We then took a bus back to our car. The hike along the rim was over snow and ice most of the time, and it took some caution because the ice was incredibly slick in places. By walking carefully and slowly we avoided any spills.

Naturally, we also took time to enjoy the birdlife of the canyon. Common Ravens and Dark-eyed (Gray-headed) Juncos seemed to be the most common birds, but we were also able to find our life Juniper Titmice (Titmouses?). That was neat - although they appear basically identical to the local Oak Titmouse we have here in California. That's not surprising, considering Oak and Juniper Titmouse were considered conspecific until the 90s. We also saw our only Clark's Nutcrackers of the trip (just two - but it seems like kind of low altitude for these birds), our first interior Western Scrub Jays (Woodhouse's group - paler and without the blue necklace of the coastal California group - it may be a separate species), Steller's Jays, Western Bluebirds, and a Eurasian Collared Dove. No Condors during the winter, unfortunately, but you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.

By the end of the day, we were ready to go home. We'd been away for a long time, and California was only a few hours away. Plus, a storm was blowing in overnight, and we didn't want to get stuck. I'm not sure how much fun the Grand Canyon would be in the middle of a snow storm, but we didn't much want to find out.

Pictures aplenty in the normal place: Grand Canyon set.

Sunset bound

The first dawn of the New Year warmed our faces in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Turning into it, and climbing precipitously, we headed for our first adventure of the New Year. We were going to Sandia Crest. Sandia Crest is the highest point of the Sandia Mountains, which crowd Albuquerque's north-eastern limits. There's a plowed road that leads right to the top, past a ski area, at a dizzying 10,600'. During the icy winter, all three species of Rosy Finch flock together for a few months, bringing with them birders with binoculars and field guides in their wake.

Usually, Rosy Finches live in out of the way places. We saw lots of Gray-crowned Rosy Finches on our backpack trip this last summer because we were in their ideal habitat - talus slopes and alpine meadows. The other two species are less widespread than their Gray-crowned cousin. Black Rosy Finches are restricted to the high mountains of the central United States - high mountains in states like Montana, Nevada, Wyoming and Idaho. Brown-capped Rosy Finches have an even smaller range, occupying high mountain areas of Colorado south into northern New Mexico. During winter, though, the birds spread out a lot more to find food as it becomes more scarce. Interestingly, though, some also stay in their breeding areas all year, making a meager living on bugs blown up into the mountains that die in the snow. Which is pretty amazing.

Libby watches the Rosy Finch flock.
Flickr

Sandia Crest is great because the birds wintering there are concentrated by the feeding stations put out by a local cafe on the mountain top. Not only can you see all three of these species in one place, but you can do in comfort through a window over a cup of steaming coffee. Normally. Not so for us! When we arrived, we found the cafe closed because it was New Years. Thankfully, though, there was still seed in the feeders, and it wasn't more than a minute before a big flock of Rosy Finches settled in the branches of some nearby trees. We were able to watch them feed from an overlook and soon picked out all three species. Gray-headed Juncos, Steller's Jays, and Mountain Chickadees filled out the experience. We were able to enjoy good views of the birds to our heart's content and were pretty happy despite the constant and steady wind and subfreezing temperatures.

Soon enough, though, we were back on the road and heading west. We were really heading toward home, now, though we were still planning on stopping to see the Grand Canyon. The rest of the day was involved in driving into and through the classic country of the southwest. Buttes and plateaus with sparse vegetation from sage to junipers zipped by on either side. Occasionally, there would be snow on the ground, and we passed into the Navajo Nation right at the Arizona border.

Our next big stop for the day was the auto tour of the Petrified Forest National Park. We hadn't made up our mind whether or not to stop there (it would take us a little bit out of our way), but we decided to a few miles before we got there and turned off to have lunch at the northern visitor's center. Then we paid our fee, jumped on the tour road and headed off to see the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

Petrified Forest
Flickr

Both were really cool, but one of our favorite stops was at the Puerco Pueblo mid-way between the two areas in the park. It's the ruins of a pueblo built way back in the 1200s and abandoned in the 1300s used by the people who farmed the valley long before the Spanish conquered Mexico. There were also some interesting petroglyphs. It's always fun to try to imagine what those mean, but I also feel a connection to their authors looking at the ancient scratches on the stone. It helps put humanity in context. The scratchings of any one human being will be meaningless some day, but the rocks they're put on will last much longer. Which author's work is worth the greatest consideration?

As it got dark, we pulled into very snowy Flagstaff, where we had dinner at a Cracker Barrel and I tried turnip greens and Libby had fried apple slices. I think she liked her apples better than I liked my greasy spinach-like side. Still, I like to try the foods of other cultures (and the south is a very different culture than California). Not long after dinner, we pulled into Tusayan and our hotel for the night, where I was unpleasantly surprised to find large crowds of people trying to find rooms for the night. We had reservations, and it wasn't any trouble, but it was annoying after the relative solitude of our trip to be among the hustle and bustle of humanity again.

Pictures on Flickr: Albuquerque to Tusayan.

Bosque del Apache

Bosque del Apache is a relatively small wildlife preserve along the Rio Grande in western New Mexico, but it is anything but small in national prestige. It is one of the most popular locations for wildlife photography in the United States, drawing photographers with its enormous wintering flocks of geese, cranes, and ducks amidst the enchanting light and landscape of New Mexico. It's one of the few places (Bolsa Chica on some occasions perhaps being the only other) that Libby and I have visited where birdwatchers are outnumbered, in this case significantly, by bird photographers.

In the morning, the big flight ponds was bristling with long lenses. Cars lined the roads and tripods sprouted like forests on the road edges and on the flight deck. Thankfully, the birds don't seem to mind the crowds. They're well adjusted to being gawked at, and allowed for close approach and great photo opportunities.

The highlight photographically at the refuge is the morning and evening commute. Every sunrise and sunset, the many thousands of birds wintering at the refuge fly in and out from the protection of their night time roost in large water impoundments to forage in specially provided fields. The result is a spectacular experience; previously serene skies fill explosively with the whirring wings, spraying water, and a pandemonium of honks and gurgles as the geese take to the sky as one. In short, it was awesome.

Snow Geese take off in the morning.

Flickr

It was also cold. There was a strong and steady wind all morning, and the already freezing temperatures were doubly compounded by the wind chill. Gloves, heavy jackets; nothing seemed to keep the chill out. Ice was built up on the water and pushed into the lee corners of the ponds. The ducks seemed comfortable, but we were not! Thankfully, it warmed nicely during the day, and we had a great time driving the auto tours, taking a couple of short hikes, and enjoying the birds. We saw lots of familiar species, and one new bird - a White-throated Sparrow that has been spending the winter with a White-crowned Sparrow flock right next to the visitor's center.

Sandhill Cranes stand in a marshy field near the end of the day.
Flickr

I can't help but compare the experience of Bosque del Apache with the other places we've been to see wintering waterfowl flocks: the Sacramento NWR complex and the Salton Sea. I wouldn't say it's better from a birding standpoint. Perhaps its best relative virtue birding-wise is the compactness of the area - it's all concentrated in one easily traveled and explored place. On the other hand, the Salton Sea has fewer numbers, but greater over-all diversity of species in an expansive landscape that can take hours of travel time getting from place to place. The Sacramento NWR complex probably has both more individual geese and ducks (though fewer cranes) and greater diversity over-all than the Bosque, but, again, the birds are spread out between several refuges with miles between them. And, of course, neither of them has the magical light of Bosque del Apache or the romantic appeal of the southwest.

Lots and lots of pictures (some of them I like very much) can be found at Flickr: Bosque del Apache set.

Carlsbad to Socorro

The morning of the 30th of December saw Libby and I decamping from our hotel, packing our car, and driving south down the same road we'd taken from El Paso. No, our destination was not Texas, but Rattlesnake Springs, a perpetual source of water that's tapped for local agriculture and Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Rattlesnake Springs provides provides a unique westernmost winter home for a few eastern birds that we'd never seen before. So, off we went with modest hopes, back into the wide flat rolling country to which we were growing so accustomed.

Our hopes, being modest, were well fulfilled, despite its being a very quiet morning. As we wandered around the spring's large pool, stumbling quickly upon our first ever Brown Thrasher sifting through leaf litter in a dark thicket. Unfortunately we never got a complete and un-obscured view of the bird, but we were able to admire his surprisingly warm reddish-brown back and lean shape. After wandering about, enjoying Wild Turkeys, lots of sparrows, spooking a Great Horned Owl from its roost tree, and finding Northern Cardinals and Pyrrhuloxia together in their vermilion splendor, we came back to the pool and found an Eastern Phoebe had joined its western cousins - allowing us to enjoy all three Phoebe species in one place!

Wild Turkeys at Rattlesnake Springs

Flickr

We missed a lot of potential birds there, some of which would have been new (Scaled Quail and Northern Bobwhite would have been awesome), but we were far from disappointed. On our way out we dropped by some bathrooms and were surprised to see two young raccoons in a neighboring tree! And, on our way back to the highway, we found a cooperative Greater Roadrunner.

From then on, we just drove to Socorro. We drove north through flat oil country before stopping for lunch at a park in Roswell - a bigger town than I had expected and with fewer alien-themed buildings (though there were quite a few). Then we drove through flat country and some hills before arriving at Socorro around dusk. That night we ate at the Socorro Springs Brewing Company. Great food - best meal of the trip by far.

A few pictures can be found at the usual place: Carlsbad to Socorro set.

Carlsbad Caverns

Imagine a big hole in the ground. Now, imagine that the big hole is filled with rocky spikes and fantastic shapes. OK, you've now successfully imagined Carlsbad Caverns. Really! That's it!

Of course, it is a little better in person. Not that I mean any offense to your imaginations.

The basic Caverns experience involves taking the self-guided tours. The Natural Entrance tour is about a mile walk that takes you 830 feet down and then about fifty feet back up again. You go in a big hole in the ground (remember what you imagined) on a paved path with a handrail and wind your way back under that hole into the very depths of the earth. The whole time, you move through these enormous passages in the rock that are hundreds of feet wide and tall. Speleothems start to show up early on, though the most impressive formations are in the deeper areas of the caves.

Going down.
Flickr

The second element of the self-guided tour is the Big Room tour. That's another paved loop that takes you around the biggest room in the cave. Its floor space is 357,469 sq ft! And the trail is more than a mile long! This area is full of huge stalagmites, and parts of the ceiling are covered in thickets of stalactites. It's really like something out of this world. At the end of the tour, there's an elevator that whisks you back up to the surface right into the Visitor's Center.

Very, very large stalagmites.
Flickr

We did the walk in the morning, and then took the elevator back up to have lunch in the parking lot. After lunch, we took a little walk around the parking lot and down a small nature trail that begins there to see the typical birds of the area. This turned out to be sparrows - Canyon Towhees, Black-chinned Sparrows, and White-crowned Sparrows were very common. We also managed to dig up a Rufous-crowned Sparrow - a lifer for Libby! Pyrrhuloxia and Sage Thrashers were also typical parts of the area's plentiful avifauna.

Black-chinned Sparrow
Flickr

Following our walk, we took the elevator back down into the cave for our scheduled 2:00 King's Palace tour. This is really a must-see part of the caves, and it's been fairly recently restricted so that you can only see it via guided tour. The rooms you visit are smallish, but incredibly full of all kinds of amazing cave formations - draperies and stalactites and stalagmites that will just blow your mind. Naturally, I decided not to bring a camera on this part of the tour.

However, I did take a camera on the rest of the trip - and the pictures are available here: Carlsbad Caverns set. There are a few pictures from the Walnut Canyon exhibits we visited, also, on our way in and out of the park.

Green Valley, AZ to Carlsbad, NM

Day Three of our road trip was a road trip. That is to say, we spent the day on the road. This was one of our longer days driving - a 500 mile trip that Google maps says should take eight hours and forty minutes. Of course, that's without any stops. It took us something between nine or ten hours.

By now, much of it comes back as a blur of dry country and bad readers stumbling their way through David Copperfield (a Librivox recording). We still haven't finished David Copperfield, despite listening to the book almost every minute we were on the road, but the second half of the book has had much more consistent good reading than the first half. Thank heaven!

Libby and the Cracker Barrel
Flickr

We took lunch a little early in Las Cruces, New Mexico; prompted by Libby's good memories revolving around the Cracker Barrel. Back when she was in Awana's high school program, she'd take annual trips to Chicago. And, every year, she'd eat at the Cracker Barrel. It's a very large and popular chain, but there aren't any locations in California. It has very southern or midwestern fare, soI enjoyed the opportunity by trying some deep fried breaded okra with my chicken and dumplings.

Las Cruces is also the first place we saw the mighty Rio Grande! After lunch, we jumped on the road, and, next thing we knew, we were in Texas!

Libby points out our location.
Flickr

The 10 dips down into Texas right at its western tip (see above). We took the 10 into El Paso before turning off and taking a smaller freeway west and north into New Mexico. The area around El Paso is Chihuahuan desert scrub, and areas of it were very reminiscent of the Mojave. But, soon after, we dropped down into some flatlands that were basically grass and salt pans dotted with cholla. Lots of Meadowlarks flew around on the side of the road, but both species are probably present here so we never actually added the birds to our trip list.

The scenic highlight of this part of the country is definitely the Guadalupe Mountains. After hours and hours of flat country and rock-dotted rounded hills, you finally reach something with some cliffs and some height to feast your eyes upon as your drive. Especially spectacular is the southern tip of the range - where it is capped by a beautiful massif called El Capitan.

El Capitan in the Guadalupe Mountains
Flickr

Not long after passing Guadalupe Mountains National Park (not a place I'd heard of, before) we were entering New Mexico, parralleling the Guadalupe Mountains northwards as they shrunk down toward Carlsbad. And as dusk fell, we pulled into our motel for the evening, stretching our cramped legs and happily anticipating the next morning's adventures.

Pictures for the day are here: http://flickr.com/photos/rowleypics/sets/72157612325020902/

Santa Rita Mountains

Saturday morning dawned clear, if cold. A thick layer of frost coasted the windshield, and the puddles of yesterday had become mini-ice rinks. We allowed ourselves to linger in the motel a few minutes, finishing off our remaining Christmas Tree bread before hitting the road for the Santa Rita Mountains.

On the way up we stopped in the grasslands to let it warm further uphill and to cast an eye about for sparrows. Our particular target was Rufous-winged Sparrows, but that wasn't to be. Instead, we found large roaming flocks of Lark Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows, Black-throated Sparrows and Vesper Sparrows. Fortunately, Vesper Sparrows were life birds, so we can't and don't complain.

Our next stop was Florida Canyon, where as I mentioned in an earlier post, we were fortunate enough to see three Rufous-capped Warblers. These birds are a rare stray to the United States from Mexico (they have bred north of the border).. We benefited greatly from the experience of some other birders who were there, and had a pretty amazing time in the canyon. After getting great views of the birds (twice) we headed back downhill to the car.

A Rufous-capped Warbler in Florida Canyon.
Flickr

While descending we fell in with a couple of Arizona birders who had been up in the canyon with us earlier, but had gone on ahead home. While looking with them unsuccessfully for some uncooperative Black-capped Gnatcatchers we thought we might have heard, one of them pished up a flock that included Green-tailed Towhees, Cactus Wrens, Black-chinned Sparrows (our first experience of them in winter), Lincoln Sparrows, and a Ladder-backed Woodpecker. All fun birds. And a few minutes later I picked out an unfamiliar warm colored finch-like bird in the oaks. It turned out to be a female Indigo Bunting! A new bird for us! And then a little bit further on we had a Crissal Thrasher, yet another new bird for us!

And right about the same time Mike Moore (he and his brother were the fellows we were walking with) started cursing and it turned out he'd discovered a Kentucky Warbler in a flock of Ruby-crowned Kinglets. This is an eastern bird that is even rarer in Arizona in winter than Rufous-capped Warblers! We helped them re-find it so he could document it (unfortunately our own camera's batteries had died because of the cold around this time), and got great looks at this beautiful and totally unexpected bird. Oh, and on the way down after all of this, we saw a beautiful mule deer off to the side of the trail (the first of many on this trip).

All in all the morning was a blast and pretty exhilarating.

We took our midday repast at Madera Canyon itself. There we had lunch while we watched Mexican Jays flying around in large flocks. Basically, they were behaving a lot like any kind of Jay you're familiar with - but these special birds are only found in the U.S. in Southeast Arizona, Southwest New Mexico and the Chisos Mountains of Texas. We then walked up to some nearby feeders where we were happy to see Wild Turkeys milling about along with large flocks of Pine Siskins, Acorn Woodpeckers, more Mexican Jays, and several varieties of Dark-eyed Juncos: Oregon, Pink-sided and Gray-headed. No Yellow-eyed Juncos, which are actually a different species found exclusively in Southeastern Arizona and southwards (we've seen them before in the Huachuca Mountains south of the Santa Ritas). Further exploring turned up a couple of mixed flocks of Townsend's Warblers, Bridled Titmice and Ruby-crowned Kinglets. I was hoping to dig a few Olive Warblers out of these mixed flocks, but no luck this trip.

Mexican Jay

Flickr

After that, we just walked around and enjoyed the snow (along with a horde of other people from the area). On the way back to the Motel we stopped in three spots - Proctor Road to look again for Black-capped Gnatcatchers (nothing doing - just an Empid); Florida Wash where we had more sparrows, our first Northern Harrier for the trip, and a Gray Flycatcher; and Continental School, where I'd heard it was possible to find Rufous-winged Sparrows coming to a drip. We found lots more sparrows there, too, but no Rufous-winged Sparrows. We also found a juvenile male Vermilion Flycatcher, White-winged Doves, and I had a brief look at a Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet.

And that was pretty much it. That night we ate dinner at a local diner with all the snow birds, and overheard conversations about how it was stupid to remarry if you'd lose your pension doing it. Ah, romance!

The day's pictures are up on Flickr: Southwestern Road Trip Day 2 Set.