Adirondack Tails: Only a little late: Spring Break 2009

I just realized that I NEVER posted anything from spring break this year. This is from my paper-and-pen journal on our way to the airport, with pictures and links along the way. Our life list and pictures are thrown in for fun at the end. This was our second run at the Buena Vista, Texas, area. This is a prime birding location down at the tip of the boot-toe in Texas, because migrants need to decide if they're going to follow the Rio Grande or the East coast. Tons of birds get pushed in/down by disturbances in the Atlantic / Gulf of Mexico, which means that lots of exotics make their only appearance in the US in this 200-mile stretch of border towns. Plus, it's warm in April, while we're usually ducking snow storms on our way out of town on Spring Break.

We got a whole mess of new life birds, which is pretty impressive. In what now totals just over seven days of birding in the region when you combine time from our two trips, we got better than 100 new life birds. Which is even more impressive.

There was a lot of time spent in the car this trip, and that got overwhelming because this wasn't supposed to be a driving vacation. We flew down there and stayed so we'd have more time to bird. Our location was what we thought of as centrally located, but we found ourselves driving 30, 50, 70 miles to get to the next birding spot. It made for what felt like late nights and shorter birding days.

It was sunny and gorgeous most of the week. This was a welcome respite from the stormy weather we'd been having for most of March and April. Seriously, who turned on the blizzards at the EQUINOX!?!?!

We went to a lot of places we'd birded before. We also went to some cool new places that we'd like to visit again at other times of the day or with different weather conditions. There were a few places that we visited before that we didn't get back to, as well. So, in summary, we will probably go back down there again.

The bed and breakfast that we stayed in was really rather nice this time. We both agreed that it was farther from where we did most of our birding. On our last day, we went out to South Padre Island, which, it turns out, was HOPPING for rare species and protected birding spaces. We could have stayed at the KOA Kampground on the Island for the same price as the B&B, so we're thinking next time we'll do that. Camping on the ocean. YES.

We rented a small SUV for this trip, and it worked out fairly well. We really liked the Dodge Nitro that was ours for about ten minutes before we realized it had temp tags that were set to expire the next day. We didn't like the Chevy Equinox we had next because it had all sorts of chrome in the cockpit that reflected into our eyes as were were driving around. Plus the windshield wiper squirter was broken, so even though there was plenty of wiper fluid in the reservoir, we had bugs all over our windshield. Remember that opening scene in Men In Black when there are bugs splattering all over the windshield of the truck? Yeah, the highway was sort of like that. Which made birding from the highway ..... difficult.

A brief stop at the McAllen airport the second day of our trip saw us switching into a Toyota Rav 4 that was pretty acceptable for the rest of the trip. We still wish we would have had that Nitro for the rest of the trip. That was a pretty sweet ride.

We had our customary run-ins with border patrol while we were down there. Lots of the birding places are right along the Rio, and are just dirt access roads that run down to the river. The Rio Grande River is only 100 yards wide at a lot of these pull-out picnic places. A strong arm could huck a baseball straight across the water with little problem. We would often cruise down to the river only to have a BP agent follow us a few minutes later to check on us. I'd guess that they see as many birders as they do coyotes down there, since they didn't seem to be surprised to find us there with our binos. One or two guys even asked us if we'd seen anything good!

The last time we went down a path to the river, it was supposed to have superlative birding. We parked under a tree next to an old picnic table to eat our lunch. We were going to leave the car, and walk back up the road to an old defunct RV park that is still maintained for birding trails. While we were sitting there eating, we spotted the green kingfisher, a bird that's eluded us two years in a row. Brian snuck out of the car with camera in hand to try and get a picture of it. As he was lining up the shot, the bird flew. And Brian realized there were four guys on the Mexico side of the river with sniper rifles. He backed away just as slowly as he could force himself to do. I didn't start to freak out until I got my binos on them and realized that the guns weren't over their shoulders but in their hands. Of course, if they'd really wanted us dead, we wouldn't be here anymore. So that was exciting.

(and also high on the list of stories that we will not be telling my mom) (oops. Mom, don't have a heart attack. It was months ago. REALLY!)

There was a lot of aruging with the GPS unit, which made our lives mostly better. There were a lot of places that provided lousy maps or directions for how to get there, and since those places were off the beaten track, a few times our GPS didn't think we were even on the road. After a bunch of by-the-seat-of-our-pants navigations, though, we've got a big list of places saved in our address book for next time.

We didn't run into local birding friends on this trip. We did, however, run into a few folks more than once. It worked out really well, because the first set of ladies directed us to a feeding station we'd missed, where we found the buff-bellied hummingbird that we'd been hunting. At another place, a gentleman pointed out a bird that turned out to be a blue grosbeak (even though he'd thought it was something else--he was an enthusiastic German birder in a touring RV that we played hop-scotch with a few times at one of the parks. A few other guys helped confirm some shorebird IDs that Brian and I were mostly convinced about, which built our confidence in being able to ID shorebirds (we both share a weakness there). Birders on SPI were very friendly and happy to give tips of where to go to see different things on the island. We passed a few of them viewing something through scopes and pulled over along the side of the road. There we got a good look at the Aplomado Falcon. We'd gotten a good glimpse of a pair of them earlier in the day, but they'd spooked when Brian got out to warn the birders behind us of them.

One of the birders we ran into mis-identified the Tamaulipas Crow at the Brownsville Dump. Still, last time we'd wanted to go to the dump and not had time. So this time we did. We spent an hour or better there, marveling at the profusion of birds swarming around the active work zones.

We were both totally entertained. There were all of these "unofficial" birding hot-spots that have rarities. Those places are accustomed to birders showing up for birds instead of the normal business, and many of them have maps that they'll give out with advice on where to go. There are all of these funny birding codes: "pull through the first fence to the caretakers cabin. Honk twice. If nobody comes, proceed through the second fence, park and start your walk." Things like that. The Brownsville Dump is one of those places. The guide book said, "pull up to the left of the office and show your binoculars, they'll wave you inside."

In reality, when we arrived, the guy said, "Oh, good! Let me give you a map!" and slid one out through the cashier-night-drawer. He explained all about where we should go and where the best viewing was. He was incredibly friendly for a sanitation worker dealing with what was probably his eightieth car of birders for the day! We went away empty on the crow, but got some really good looks at Chiuahuan Ravens. We also got a big kick out of the fact that we're probably the only two people we know who would stop and have lunch on vacation in a landfill. Heee!

The guy who though he'd seen the crow at the dump also told us that the Tropical Parulas were still at the highway rest-stop. Brian and I altered our route on our way back to the airport to go through the rest-stop, and realized that we'd done some good birding there when we'd driven down two years ago. We crossed the highway and beat through the bushes a little bit and found our Parulas, the last bird for the trip.

We got to the San Antonio Airport in time for a massive line of thunderstorms to cut straight across all of Texas. We're talking replete with tornadoes and golf-ball sized hail. FUN! We stood in line for a dog's age at the airline counter to try and see if there was another flight line that would help us avoid Dallas-Fort Worth airport. We found out that it didn't matter that our flight was delayed out of San Antonio, because our flight from DFW to Philly was straight up cancelled!!!! The lady punched about a zillion keys on her workstation and finally hooked us up with a completely different route home to my folks' house. We ended up going to Chicago, then hopping airlines and coming in to Harrisburg.

The net result was a 11:30 pm rescue from my dad at Harrisburg Friday night, and my folks taking us down to Philly on Saturday afternoon to retrieve our car.

And thus ends the mis-mash account of our spring break trip 2009 to Mission, Texas, to see all the awesome migrating birdies.

Here's our list (in slightly chronological order):

Hermit Thrush (me only)
Golden Cheeked Warbler (hellooo, endangered species!)
Long Billed Dowitcher
Mottled Duck (me only)
Least Grebe
Laughing Gull
Buff-Bellied Hummingbird
Gull Billed Tern
Least Tern
Greater Yellowlegs
Green Kingfisher
Painted Bunting (me only)
Audubon's Oriole (I called this one and was VERY proud of myself!)
Swainson's Warbler
Louisiana Waterthrush
Red Crowned Parrot
Mexican Magpie Jay
Royal Tern
Bonaparte's Gull
Black Crested Titmouse
Wilson's Plover
Sandwich Tern
Ruddy Turnstone
Willett
Tennessee Warbler
Aplomado Falcon
Chiuahuan Raven
Caspian Tern
Common Paracque
Olive Sparrow
Black Throated Green Warbler
Blue Capped Viero
Blue Winged Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Swainson's Thrush
Baird's Sparrow
Black Skimmer
Glossy Ibis
Neotropic Cormorant
Tropical Parula

Here's some of our best shots. Also: CAUTION!! There be snakes below!

Black necked stilts: not new this trip, but one of my favorite birds....