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).
Here’s a few notes about the trip (travel, car, hotel, food) and then complete lists of what I saw.
Travel
I flew on AirTran from Boston to San Antonio. Although San Antonio was a bit of a drive, round-trip was about $250 and Mission and other nearby airports were all well over $500. I also got a chance to see my friend Jack in San Antonio (although I didn’t actually have time to see the city). AirTran was quite good. I picked it out of several airlines that were all about the same price because it had the best connections. Although I would have liked one more day, by leaving on Friday I had a noon flight where all the weekend flights were at 7AM. I also had a better layover in Atlanta (several hours) compared to barely an hour in either Detroit or Memphis.
Today was the last morning of birding before I headed back to San Antonio. As I planned yesterday, I started by heading to Anzalduas. Or at least attempting to. I turned down the marked road and shortly found a giant dirt levee. Figuring that was wrong, I backtracked a bit and continued further but it appeared to be right. I returned, started up the levee, and decided that this wasn’t a great idea (although trying to back down wasn’t either). Since I was planning at Bentsen for souvenirs anyway, I headed over and spent the morning there.
Today started with the weekly bird walk at Estero Llano Grande. I joined the walk as it heads into restricted areas of the park, which is where all the rarities have been seen. We ended up missing all of those, but it was well worth it anyway.
The deck by the visitor’s center had a fabulous view of the water and I picked up the first lifer of the day from there with a Green Kingfisher perched in the open (finally). The walk started a bit late and as we milled around, someone called out that the Buff-bellied Hummingbird was near the feeders. I rushed over and got a nice look as it spread itself out to warm up in the morning sun.
As I noted in yesterday’s post, I scaled back today and headed to Resaca de la Palma. This is a brand new state park (open about 5 weeks) that has been getting good reviews. On the way over, I had noticed a birding trail sign right by the hotel, so I took a swing by. I believe it was for site 44, the Fish Hatchery. Partway down the road, two dogs ran in front of me, which caused a bit of a delay as I couldn’t see whether they had moved or not. I got down to the end of the road and didn’t see much habitat (reading the description later, I think I needed to go down to the right a bit), so I turned around and headed to Resaca.
Today I planned on spending the morning at Santa Ana NWR and then heading over to Bentsen for the afternoon butterfly walk. That proved to be a good plan.
I reached Santa Ana at 8 and checked in at the visitor center. I was going to pay cash, but when I mentioned that I had a duck stamp the person at the desk got all excited that someone would actually use one. I grabbed a trail map and started out. I started at the Chachalaca Trail and immediately had an Olive Sparrow. Quite the skulker. A few feet further, I had a better view of Long-billed Thrasher but still not great.
I woke up about 7, confirmed that I still couldn’t figure out how to access the hotel wireless and also that the shower didn’t appear to be working (although I think I got this figured out by the next hotel). I took a look out the window and noticed a bunch of birds on the water. Setting up the scope quickly, I found them to be mostly American Coots and Blue-winged Teal with a few blackbirds mixed in.
Day 0 was a travel day, flying from Boston to San Antonio with a stop in Atlanta and then driving south to Zapata.
Up at 6, off to the airport by 6:30. A crow, some gulls, and a red-tail along the way. Got dropped off, walked in, checked my bag and cleared security in about 10 minutes. I found the gate, which was being used for an earlier flight and settled in nearby. An amusing moment came when a TSA agent walked over and shouts to someone sitting a row over that he left his keys at the counter. He went running back and after returning kept cracking up every few minutes.
Quick post from the airport in San Antonio. Trip was a great success. Fell a little short on the bird goal, but decided that I was too tired to get all the way to Laguna Atascosa and South Padre on Tuesday, so I probably would have made it if I got there. Also didn’t have a lot of luck with the harder birds (no Hook-billed, Red-billed Pigeon, Muscovy, etc) except for this guy:
