Winter

 

Has loosened its grip.  A nice warm mostly rainy day today.  Seventies as far as the forecast can see.

 

Took a drive.  We were going to go get the Dusky-capped Flycatcher, but it’s a morning bird and we decided not to get up at 4:30 to go get it.  Instead, we slept in, then headed out to where a flock of Mountain Plovers has been spotted north of Harlingen.  We followed the directions, but the last road to get to where the Plovers are is a dirt road, and with all the rain the last few days, the road was impassable.  Soo close.

 

From there we headed over to Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge to get the Aplomado Falcon.  It is being seen there, but not by us yet.  We struck out on that bird, but we got 70 other species while we were there.  We walked right into one rarity when we spotted a Tropical Parula right outside the Park Office!

 

A nice day, mostly in the car because of the weather.  We added 16 birds to our year-list; now we’re at 129.  It was a good day for wading birds.  We saw Great Blue Herons, Snowy Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Tricolored Herons, Reddish Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Black-crowned Night-Herons, White Ibis, White-faced Ibis.  We saw at least 100 Great Egrets, and estimated 200 Roseate Spoonbills.

 

Even though we didn’t get the Aplomado Falcon, we still had an 11 Raptor day, highlighted by 3 White-tailed Kites.