We left Tex and Lee’s for the last time this morning, which came even sooner than it usually does, after we’d stayed up late planning the next segment of our trip. We had one last stop in the McAllen area: Bentsen Rio-Grande State Park, a rather famous birding locale. We had been there for an owl prowl two nights prior, which made certain sections of the park seem oddly familiar, now that the sun was out. And today, the sun was very much out. The high was 104 degrees, we later learned. But we were well prepared with copious water supply and sunblock on our backs this time around. We made a beeline for the Hawkwatch tower, since that’s where the visitor’s log suggested the action had been the past few days. As it turned out, there were about as many people on the tower as hawks sighted all morning. We saw a few interesting new species (including Swainson’s Hawk) and moved on to the walking trails. There we found Verdin, a Southwest relative of the chickadee. When we stopped in back at the tower on our way out, there was a very experienced birder who knew a number of us were looking for a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet (which is a rare and prized bird to get here at Bentsen). He got everyone excited a few times mistaking a Verdin song for the Tyrannulet’s call note. Eventually, we gave up listening and headed back toward the car…but on our way, we got lucky and did hear the Tyrannulet. Best of all, a Verdin was calling on the other side of us for comparison. It’s always nice to find the birds you won’t have another shot at. The icing on the cake was a Hooded Oriole, an early arrival for the breeding season, which we saw at the feeders near the entrance.
Late as usual, we drove to Falcon Dam State Park, where we were happy to learn the camping only cost four dollars. I think I drank about a gallon of water before settling in for some well-deserved rest.
March 15
We spent the morning walking around the desert trails at Falcon State Park. Crested Caracaras, a bizarre combination of large falcon and vulture, were everywhere. We saw at least 30 sitting on one hillside, though we didn’t see any food source that would have drawn them there. We found one desert shrub that had a Pyrrhuloxia and a Green Jay in it, Texas analogues to the Northern Cardinal and Blue Jay, respectively. That has been the experience so far—most things, especially if you’re looking, are not quite the same.
In the late morning, we headed over to Salineno, where a US Fisheries and Wildlife tract of land has a great feeding station. Turns out the woman hosting the feeders used to live down the street from Abby in Massachusetts. We were rewarded with our third new oriole, this one yellow with a black head—Audubon’s Oriole.
We had been spoiled by short drives lately, so the four or so hours up to Lost Maples in the afternoon seemed pretty onerous. We didn’t even go looking for the White-collared Seadeaters in Zapata (the only place you can see them in the States, practically). On the basis that we needed to leave some life-birds for next time, of course. Instead, we had the largest chocolate shake in existence at McDonald’s and made liberal use of their free internet. Which meant that we got to Lost Maples at around 10:30 at night and then had to register and walk a mile in to our campsite in the dark. On the way there Abby decided to see if there was water in the streambed, by walking blindly into it. It turned out that there was.
March 16
There are two specialty birds at Lost Maples that are found only in Texas and only really in the so-called “Hill Country”. These are the Golden-cheeked Warbler and the Black-capped Vireo, both endangered species with limited range. The vireos we didn’t think had arrived yet, so the warblers were our target species. Their song is similar to the Black-Throated Green’s, probably the most common warbler song in Acadia National Park where we had been spending our time until quite recently. And as luck would have it, I heard that song from the outhouse, first thing in the morning. Now I am not a particularly advanced pisher (pishing, for the non-birders, is the hissing noise birders make to try to draw in songbirds nearby). So I was pleasantly surprised when my pishing brought in a small flock of Ruby-Crowned Kinglets and Black-crested Titmice, the Mexican sister species to our Tufted variety. But I was downright shocked when the Golden-cheeked Warbler we’d been hearing landed in a branch not five feet from our heads. It was too close for binoculars even! What a striking little bird. We saw four of them in our walk, which despite some ominous weather and wind patterns brewing, was gorgeous in its own right. The landscape was like a mix of Northern juniper-oak forests and Southwestern canyonlands. It was especially neat coming from the flat, dry border zone. And it served as a kind of transition to the Big Bend area where we were headed next.
First, however, we decided to somehow misplace every object in our possession. You would think it would be fairly simple to keep track of one car-load of things. Sadly, this is not the case, and we redefined “losing streak” during our stay at this particular park. We did manage to rediscover all of the important things, such that only a few cheap (albeit useful) utensils are still missing. “Lost and Found” Maples, Abby suggested for its new name.
When we returned to our campsite for the night, our tent was inside out…as was everyone’s, from the look of it. The wind was fierce that night, but we moved our tent to a better spot and oriented it better toward the direction of the force. It was still a restless night, and we woke early the next morning, which was probably a good thing as we had a longish drive ahead.
March 17
A pretty boring day of driving…noteworthy for its lack of new bird species. This was the first and, as I write, the only day in which I did not get a life bird. Having averaged over ten new species per day my first week, this was a shock to the system. I suppose the life bird trend will inevitably end, but it sure has been fun while it’s lasted. We were delayed on the drive by grocery shopping and a trip to the hardware store to try to repair our funky Coleman stove. I also unintentionally drove about 20 miles out of the way at one point as we neared our destination, which didn’t help. And to make matters worse, as we approached, we found signs proclaiming full campgrounds, all of them, at Big Bend. We tried them anyway (the difference between a full and an open campground being one tent, after all) but they were completely packed. Spring Break finally got the better of us. We thought we were in the clear after we got away from Padre Island and the beaches, but apparently the National Park System sees a substantial increase in traffic at this time too. The “campsite” we ended up with was just outside the park in a town called Study Butte, behind a Motor Inn on a patch of grass with an annoying beeping piece of machinery. We didn’t bother setting up the tent, as we could see the wind hadn’t abated at all since the previous night, and the tents around us were all buckling anyway. This was a good decision for most of the night. Let’s just say that we didn’t set an alarm clock, but we woke up in a wet hurry first thing the next morning.
March 18
We somehow managed to visit all three major campgrounds at the National Park (and they’re each about an hour apart) before settling into a spot. It’s kind of a wild ride, because one day’s worth of campers are clearing out while a new day’s worth are clamoring for their spots. We got a backcountry permit, but it didn’t start until the following day, so we needed somewhere to camp and didn’t fancy going back to Study Butte again. The first campground by the Rio Grande had one empty spot, but we passed it up hoping for a better site. The most central of the campgrounds, Chisos Basin, was elevated enough to be in a cloud…while we were up there, the light rain actually started flaking up. That’s when I decided we’d try one more place. But halfway to the Cottonwoods campground I realized we were cutting it a little too close for desert-comfort on the gasoline front. So we ended up going back to Study Butte for gas, though thankfully not to stay the night. But when we finally got to the Cottonwoods, we did manage to get the one last open spot. Hoorah. By that time, we were too tired to do much else.
At the campsite, there was a friendly neighborhood wild turkey waddling around, along with an assortment of friendly neighborhood birder types (not all of whom were waddling). And Vermillion Flycatchers galore. Another bird I feel richer for knowing and glad not to have missed, in equal measures. We took a short hike in the evening in Santa Elena canyon, which was really neat. We got our first Western Screech-Owl on the way back, and ever since we’ve been working on imitating its call, so that we can draw out and/or terrorize resident songbirds with it in our future travels (it’s already worked on a Spotted Towhee).
Don
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