Texas adventures

Hi everyone.  Okay, sorry it's been longer than I intended.  My internet access has been somewhat limited by my laptop's current state of not-working-ness.  Here's a little recap.  Noah, Kailyn and I have been in Texas for the past week.  We played a dance in San Antonio and then kept going south all the way to McAllen and Brownsville (fyi really crapy cities... endless identical mega stores and chain restaurants as far as the eye can see... they make Utica and Watertown look like cultural treasures).  The idea was to spend a couple days birding along the Rio Grande, then head over the the Gulf, then work our way back up to Austin and Dallas.  And yes, it's been incredibly hot.  Mid-90s everyday, think we crossed 100 a couple times.  Now we're back in Dallas and the humidity is down a bit so it's not as bad.  For the most part it's been a great trip.  LOTS of great birds but I'll put the details in another post.  Only one bad hotel.  It took us a while but we eventually found some really good Mexican food and we've been able to hang out with some old and new friends.  During the car rides we've been listening to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke on CD - one of my absolute favorite books.  And I just got the new DMB album which (somewhat to my surprise) TOTALLY ROCKS!  So all's well.  We're hanging out in Dallas for a few days now.  I'm really excited because I think I might get to see St Vincent on Thursday!  Here are some pics... 

The Hawk Tower at Bentsen

This was not an easy picture to take!  The fire ants and mosquitoes were really bad through here so I had to do this funny little dance in place while Noah got out his camera

The Rio Grande!

Morning at Santa Ana 

In addition to all the birds we've seen some other cool wildlife like javelinas, a tortoise, dolphins, a bobcat and these crazy huge toads!

The Gulf of Mexico