Ambassador Birds; Birding the Rio Grande and a little more

                                                           January 1st Estero Llano, Cameron County

We intentionally started the year on January 1st with their awesome 8:30 Estero Llano hike filled with Texas hospitality. Thanks Sue, Steve and Huck.

Interesting bird id puzzle to start the year at Estero Grande.    Not a great a photo, but if you join the Nashville Warbler in looking closely at the bird in the bottom of the photo you seen a different warbler.  At first I thought it might be an Oven bird, but now I believe it is  an Orange crowned warbler bathing.  A look at internet photos shows other photos where a mute orange crown is shown during bath time.  Plus the Orange crowned was the warbler du jour.

Crested Caracara on nest, Wood stork  and Common Pauraque all at Estero Llano Grande, my favorite kick-off spot in the valley.

January 2nd and 3rd Reseca De La Palma Cameron County

 Reseca along with Santa Margarta Ranch was the place to be in the valley.  On the second, the day heated up and the birds came in to bath at the water feature right next to the visitor center.  First two Tropical Paula's came down and bathed together with a Nashville Warbler.  

Then the Grey-Collared Becard came down and checked out the scene.Besides the Becard, perhaps the rarest bird of the trip with only three US records, also  reported at Reseca was the Roadside hawk, a common raptor throughout the lower Americas, but a real treat in Texas.  The reports were that he came in at dawn to hunt the dry Reseca about a kilometer from the visitor Center.  (A Reseca is defined as a former channel of the Rio Grande that does not have an outlet.  And also is slang for hangover.  Don't be confused.). The Becard was one three Cocde 5 birds for the year.

We took a break from the Rio Grande to visit the Aplomado Falcon platform of Texas100.  The bonus of this was a White tailed hawk, a beautiful grasslands raptor that circled over us.

White tailed Hawk with clean underside and striking black band.  Texas Hwy. 100 Cameron County

We returned that afternoon to Reseca to look again for the Roadside Hawk.  But all we found were armadillos.  We returned the next day and the hawk was in a new location around the tram route.  Thanks to the anonymous source.

              January 2nd Frontera Audobon.    After the Roadside hawk we pick up the Crimson collared grosbeak at Frontera Audobon,  He flew in as we viewed a furtive  Golden Crowned warbler.  I was alerted by phone (tip: find the most focus birder and exchange phone numbers) by Dimitri who was willing to put in the time to find the birds.

January 3rd  and 4th. Santa Margarita Ranch.

 Santa Margarita Ranch reopened to birders last year and boy the word has gotten out.  We went on one of the earlier trips driving local guide Ryan Rodriquez out to view Brown jay and all with a great group.  This year the place is much more organized and expensive but so worth it and one of the few guided trips we will do in our L&M BY.  The photos are from a January 4th trip led by excellent guides Justin LeClaire and Evan Farese.  They were on it like a hungry heron.

 

Rose throated becard, Bare throated Tiger heron (code 5 bird) and Brown jay (the football of birds), Santa Margarita Ranch.  We also heard the Mottled Owl the night before on a trip led by Simon Kiacz and Zach Johnson.

  The Ambassador Bird (But does it count?)

 January 5th Corpus Christie.  The Cattle tyrant is what I call an Ambassador bird. An Ambassador bird is a bird that is hanging in an area with lots of non birders.  The locals start to recognize the bird and often offer help.  The Cattle tyrant is also a mystery bird.  A bird so far away from its normal geographical location that it boggles the mind to imagine how it got from Panama to Corpus.  

We were greeted by two women working the Tourist office.  "You all looking for the bird?" they asked.  We chatted about the antics of this yellow tennis ball with wings.  I emphasized the money we spent coming to Corpus.  Then we were off, Molly to a local bakery  and me to look for the bird.  I walked down North Chapperal Street in front of the Lazy Beach tavern. (lots of surf references here) and a local pointed up to the corner of the roof above us and said, "Looking for him" And by golly I was.  

That's Molly not the tyrant.  I just like this photo better than the one I took of the Cattle tyrant.  If you want to see that one the EBird list is https://ebird.org/checklist/S158147492

Our next scheduled stop was the Fish Hatchery outside of Elephant Butte Lake State Park after a long drive to New Mexico.  Where unknowingly I dragged my Covid stricken ass around looking for a Rufous backed robin and a Nutting's flycatcher.  Luckily, Molly was all over the Rufous backed Robin drinking from the other side of the creek and crushed a pretty good photo.

Fish Hatchery near Elephant Butte, New Mexico January 5th

A strong group of birders, only partly satiated by the Robin, searched in vein for the Nuttings.  We all gave up.  Then later in the hotel when checking the Ebird record I found one listing for a Nutting's from today. The only documentation for the rare sighting was the word 'continuing'  Many birders write down 'continuing'.  The problem arises when you only write 'continuing' and nothing else.  The birder in question listed there time in the field as concurrent with the other birders.  Did they choose to keep quiet and violate the standard to help other birders or did something else happen like viewing the bird on the way out? We will never know and it was a big miss.  Of course, missing life birds tends to stick in one's craw.

Now back to the hotel room in Albuquerque.  After a morning of rest and starting this spiffy blog, it was time to drive up the mountain.  At the top of Sandia Crest east of Albuquerque is a feeder sitting at over 10,000 feet.  This feeder draws in all three North American species of Rosy Finches, if you are lucky.  The Rosy finches only come to the feeder in the winter when food sources are scarce.  

                                                        

                January 6th and 7th Sandia Crest, New Mexico

Well it's Covid.  That's right I said Covid not Corvid. That's why I am finally starting a blog in an               Albuquerque hotel room on January 6th. Not in our van at some overnight rest stop.   I thought I just wore    myself down chasing birds with my wife Molly in the Rio Grande Valley along.  But no.   Covid hit me    just after we saw the Cattle tyrant on the Corpus Christie waterfront. I could feel it coming but I kept          birding the next say trying to find that darn flycatcher.                                                                                              

                       Feeder frenzy at Sandia Crest

This was our second time visiting the one little Winter  feeder at 10,00 feet at Sandia Cresst outside of New Mexico.  This year the temperature at the top was especially cold, fifteen to seventeen degrees.  There was also fair amount of snow to slog up to try to get in position. The Rosy finches announced themselves with a series of frantic chips than hit the feeder and nearby trees for a few minutes at a time.  In such cold weather all you could do was frantically take photos and wait to check it out at the hotel later.  But we got   all three!

     The Rarest of the three  the Brown Caped Rosy Finch
    

This was five days into the start of our Big year.  In 2022 I identified 532 birds, last 650 and this year, the last year of a three year run, I hope to see 700 plus birds in the ABA area.  This will be the first year we will visit Alaska. And,  of course, I hope Molly gets 700 birds also. 

Now I am sick in an Albuquerque hotel room knowing that Rosy finches are only a forty-five minute drive away on the top of Sandia Crest.   

We started the year five days before in the Rio Grande Valley.  Throughout December we watched the American Birding Association (ABA) rare bird alert grow with birds, such as the Gray collared becard, that were entering the valley to winter over in Texas.  We hoped they will still be there when we arrived and they were!

January 7th, Riparian Reserve at Gilbert Water Ranch, Az.                                                                     To complete our trip home in our van we had two long snowy drives with short windows on each day to bird.  On the first day we targeted  the Streak-backed oriole in Gilbert, Arizona.  Life bird!   The Streak-backed was about one dozen Code 4 birds we would get for the yea.r

January 8th, Joshua Tree National Park

Then we went full circle.  Our trip  to the southwest had been launched after a family holiday visit in the Palm Springs area. During the visit in late December we stayed in a campsite in  Joshua Tree National Park.  On our way back we also stayed in Joshua Tree.  Before turning north we birded one last time among the Joshua Trees this time the desert birds included a big flock of Pinyon Jays, Ladder backed woodpeckers, and winter flocks of Brewers Sparrows.

Ladder backed woodpecker in Joshua Tree, Joshua National Park.Now we are home recovering. 

One we missed:   A Fan-tailed warbler showed up in Brownsville since we left.  It is a symbol of our Molly working and my lack of full commitment s that I didn't go chasing that one bird.  But there will be other trips to view birds along our favorite river the Rio Grande.  But boy what a great start to the year.  And as we arrived home on January 9th we had 181 birds for the year.