Texas Birds

My trip report from Texas last week...

On October 31 Noah and I took off for a brief visit to the Rio Grande. It was a long drive but we did have some great birds. We started out in San Ygancio looking for seedeaters. Unfortunately we couldn't find any but down along the river we had some nice common valley birds like GREAT KISKADEE, COUCH'S KINGBIRD, GREEN JAY, INCA DOVE, PYRHULOXIA, ect. There were tons of sparrow, the majority of which seemed to be Lincoln's. NEOTROPIC CORMORANTS were side by side with Double-crested down by the water. A nice, non-breeding FRANKLIN'S GULL flew past us a couple times. This was almost a lifer since my only sighting of this species was back in 200_ of a bird in upstate New York! After a while we had an adult GRAY HAWK sitting in a tree and an enormous kingfisher perched on the American side. I had to wait till the bird flew across the river into Mexico before I was 100% sure but it was indeed a RINGED KINGFISHER (Life Bird)! Although somewhat distant, we had good looks and got to hear it's amazing call. We continued down the valley, adding HARRIS'S HAWK, CHIHUAHUAN RAVEN and Sandhill Crane. A stop at in Zapata still didn't get us any seedeaters but I did have a nice GREEN KINGFISER making this my first ever three-kingfisher day! Also in the area was a lovely VERMILLION FLYCATCHER. Late afternoon we headed to Bentsen RGV State Park. Spent most of our time waiting for a Black-vented Oriole that has been in the area. No luck there but it was still a lovely evening with lots of nice birds. LEAST GREBE and CAVE SWALLOWS gave us some nice looks. PLAIN CHACHALACAS were of course all over the place. Had both CURVE-BILLED and LONG-BILLED THRASHERS, WHITE-TIPPED DOVE and BLACK-CRESTED TITMOUSE on our short walk into the park. As it was getting dark we heard multiple calling EASTERN SCHREECH-OWLS and saw several COMMON PARAQUES. The next morning we looked unsuccessfully for Green Parakeets in McAllen and spent a little time at Santa Ana NWR. Nothing too exciting but OLIVE SPARROW and COMMON GROUND-DOVE were nice. On our way out of the valley we were treated to brief looks at a beautiful WHITE-TAILED HAWK. Back in Austin that night I happened to SEE(!) a small owl fly into a tree outside the house we were staying at. It stayed put so I went and got Noah's iPhone. Almost immediately after playing their call I had at least four different EASTERN SCREECH-OWLS responding. A couple of them flew right in and I even got some decent looks at one that perched in the light of the neighbor's garage door. These were my first looks at Eastern Screech-Owls in probably about 10 years! The curse has been broken! Final new year birds of the trip were an unexpected pair of MONK PARAKEETS at the airport! About 100 birds for the trip so far. Year list is at 325.

Mountain PloverGreat KiskadeePlain ChachalacaGreen JayAnd some non-birds...