Sunday, January 15, 2012

Warbler... Yes! Jay... No.

We're back from the LRGV! We had a great Saturday with the Golden-crowned Warbler showing up in the morning at Frontera. It took a while to get a workable pic of this guy. He really keeps to the brush and he's always on the move. Tracking his soft 'tick' across the trails, we finally got him in a place where we could poke a lens in. Not the greatest pic, but it works for our purposes. 




We met Sam Taylor, a birder from San Antonio, there and decided we might meet later at Quinta Mazatlan for the Tropical Parula. We hung out at Quinta for a couple of hours, but never found the bird. Sam showed up as we were leaving. We did a walk around the parking area and spied a Lesser Goldfinch, but no parula. We left Quinta and headed for Sabal Palm... who'd been hosting their own Tropical Parula recently... and a Dusky-capped Flycatcher. About half way there, Sam called with word he had the parula at the orange bars near the pond back at Quinta. We opted to press on instead of turning around. Our bad. The only thing we found at Sabal were mosquitos.
From there, we headed to South Padre. The Kittiwake was a slam dunk just seconds after we arrived. We walked the beach a bit and met up with Sam again to catch the SPI Birding and Nature Center before it closed.
Sunday, we headed straight for Salineno, but the Brown Jay was a no-show for the soggy A.M. crowd. We did get a House Wren and a Spotted Towhee... but also witnessed the demise of a Green Jay at the hands of a stray cat, and the death of a Red-winged Blackbird to the claws of a Sharp-shinned Hawk. 
The circle of life.
We stopped briefly at Falcon State Park and picked up the American Goldfinch, Cassin's Sparrow and a few others... bringing our photo total to 33 for the weekend.
We head to Cali-forn-I-A on Wednesday.

3 comments:

  1. Great birding with you guys! Bummer on the Brown Jay. :( I dipped on the Becard at Estero and the Dusky-capped at Sabal.(At least the mosquitos weren't so bad.) My consolation prize was a Black-throated Gray at Estero, a lifer for me. You guys have blast in Cali. I'll be staying tuned... Take care and God bless!

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  2. Glad you got the warbler, sorry you missed the other things. Glad that you've passed the 100 mark! Have a wonderful time in CA.

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  3. Thanks Sam... likewise! We saw that Black-throated Gray on New Year's Day! We're heading to CA in the morning. Weather for the pelagic trip on Saturday might be a little iffy, but hopeful the rain will hold off.

    Thanks to you too, Gabriel! We hope that CA gets us up to around 150!

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