I spent a week in January 2009 (from the 10th to the 16th) in South Texas. This trip was by myself and covered from Zapata to Brownsville looking for birds with some butterflies and dragonflies thrown in. I had originally planned on heading as far east as Laguna Atascosa and South Padre Island but ended up not going quite that far. As it was my first time down there, I didn’t spend a lot of time looking for individual birds but just wanted to experience a bit of everything. Consequently, I missed most of the harder to find species and the vagrants that were present (Blue Bunting and Crimson-collared Grosbeak among them).
I ended up with somewhere around 115 species of birds, 40 butterflies, and 12 dragonflies, including plenty of new everything.
This report will include daily summaries as well as a wrap-up and a species list.
- Travel Day (Boston to San Antonio to Zapata)
- Day 1 (Zapata, Falcon State Park, Salineno)
- Day 2 (Santa Ana and butterfly walk at Bentsen)
- Day 3 (Resaca de la Palma and Sabal Palm)
- Day 4 (Estero Llano Grande and LRGV NWR)
- Day 5 (Bentsen and drive to San Antonio and then flight home the next day)
Travel and equipment notes and complete lists
Also see the two posts I managed to make during the trip: after day 1 and heading home (not that those won’t be repeated in the daily reports).
(Sorry for the blank refresh, I’m bumping the date so this is at the top of the TX09 category)