Best Little Breakfast Stop In Guatemala

If you ever have the fortune to find yourself near the Pacific Coast of Guatemala, one of the must stops should be Rincon Suizo in Tecpan, Guatemala.  Half the reason is the food, the other half is the birding potential!

I have to say that I had one of the best breakfasts of my whole entire life here.  Much of the food was pre-ordered for us on the road and this place was no exception.  The original meal  included beans, plantains, tortillas, eggs and hot sauce.  But when I entered the restaurant, all I could smell was bacon and I was a woman obsessed, I asked if it was possible to add bacon to my meal (I offered to pay extra) but they gave it to me--it was the best bacon I ever tasted, it was grilled.

The tortillas are out of this world too and I am forever spoiled.  Every place we went for a meal, whether it was breakfast, lunch or dinner, you heard the familiar patting of women preparting the thick, fresh delights, not like the thin, papery ones at my local grocery store.

We took a trail behind the restaurant which led to a clearing surrounded by a woods, full of wind and a little bit of cloud. Our quarry was a bird called a pink-headed warbler which just might be the snazziest warbler out there (which is saying something because in general most warblers are fairly snazzy to begin with).  The wind whipping through the trees, the slight howling was slightly ominous but only added to the adventure of the search, especially as we ascended the slopes and my heavy breathing and heartbeat just added to the sound.

There were quite a few familiar birds like this flock of rose-breasted grosbeaks.  At least three are in the above photo, two females and a male.  I wondered if any of this flock would make it up to Minnesota.  I normally write blog posts pretty much as they happen, but I'm enjoying doing these Guatemala posts so early in the Minnesota spring, even though I was there in February.  While I see on Facebook and Twitter that my birding friends in the southern US are getting warblers and sparrows, I'm still waiting, finding joy in highs of 40 degrees.  Looking back to Guatemala is a pleasure.

This was a hermit thrush that caused a bit of debate in our birding group.  When we first saw it at a distance, some in the group thought it was a gray-cheeked thrush.  It ended up being a hermit thrush, still a delightful bird, always happy to see a familiar face.

One of the cutest birds we saw was a tufted flycatcher, which is reminiscent of a tufted titmouse.  I have to say that will never be a hardcore lister because I just do not care about my flycatchers as much as I should (I am not one to put up a strong fight for a willow or alder flycatcher if it's in the fall and if you know what I mean by that reference, you know too much about birds).  But this dude is cute, easily distinguishable by its crest, and hangs out in the open making it easy to identify.

As I look at these photos, it's interesting to note that while we were here, I didn't get photos of colorful birds. Non Birding Bill would say that is natural since I don't pay attention to colorful birds, I'm only interested in brown birds.  But we saw some really cool colorful birds, one being a red-faced warbler (do follow the link, it's a great bird) and we did finally see the pink-headed warbler.  I just did not get a good photo.  Mike from 10,000 Birds got a pretty good shot of it though--isn't that just a dynamite bird?

It's also funny that I have so many brown bird photos because what struck me most about the native people was how important color is to their culture and to their day to day lives.  While we were birding in the woods, this group of women came out of the woods. I was a good distance away and digiscoped them. They were off to work probably in nearby fields and here they are in beautiful colorful dresses.

In many of the places we went birding, we would come across family groups of women going about their day to day lives. One of my favorite moments was coming out of the woods in pursuit of a bird and finding a group of Mayan women washing their clothes in a stream.  The vibrant clothes were spread to dry on the banks as they finished the wash and their small children played nearby.  A young girl, no more than four or five was holding her mother's machete.  I wanted to get a photo, but her mother shook her head, "No." I had to respect her wishes and completely understood.  I don't like my photo taken on laundry day either.

But color just played a huge roll in the day to day life of people in Guatemala.  I wondered what it must like for someone to come from a country like this were even a guy who sells buckets uses color in his merchandising comes to someplace like Minnesota and sees the winter where it's white and then early spring when it's several weeks of gray and brown--how monochromatic and hard to deal with!  That's got to be huge culture shock.

Fabulous Guatemala Hummingbirds At Cabana Suiza

I have some serious Guatemala blogging to catch up on! And this Sunday morning when I read that on the calendar that is was April 5, yet looked out the window and saw snow covering the ground, I was longing for those 10 days in that tiny country.  I wanted to think back to stopping at a coffee shop called Cabana Suissa where I got to savor tiny dudes like the berylline hummingbird above.

I mentioned earlier when I first came back that there were some digiscoping challenges due to shade and just not being used to the way the birds moved.  Above is a female cinnamon-bellied flowerpiercer, I couldn't get a great shot of one of those birds to save my life, but thank goodness for bird feeders providing predictable perches.

Here's that berryline again.  Check out those awesome hummingbird pants.  I'm used to the standard ruby-throated hummingbird with green on the back, white on the front and the males have that splash of red on the throat.  This guy is a gorgeous green, with glossy rust and bright white pants!  Although, if we're going to talk in ornithology terms, those white feathers are covering the toes and feet, so this hummingbird would have white socks.

The azure-crowned hummingbird also had some white pants going on, but not nearly to the degree that the berylline did.

While getting shots of the azure-crowned, I was able to see a bit more of the spectacular colors of the magnificent hummingbird behind it.  Note the purple, the emerald green on top of the other shiny greens of the white-eared hummingbird.

Here's a better shot of the white-eared in all its glory.  I was having such a blast getting photos of birds, I never made it into the coffee shop.  They guides were kind enough to grab the coffee for me and bring it out.

I could have spent all afternoon at Cabana Suiza, watching the none stop activity of the hummingbirds and getting photo after photo.  It was fantastic to be out with such great guides keeping us on the move to add birds to our list, but it's all a treat just to stop and savor great birds in great light.

Hey, check out this hummer.  This was the largest hummingbird that game into the feeders called a rufous saberwing--it was huge compared to the others, almost twice the size.  I felt if it were any bigger, it would have been lethal around our heads.  It was harder to get shots of the larger saberwing, it was more easily bullied by the smaller hummingbirds.

These are just some of the great birds that you can see in Guatemala.

San Diego Wood Ducks

Well, the San Diego Bird Festival put on by the San Diego Audubon Society has wound down to a a close and it was an action packed festival from workshops, to games to, movie sneak preview to even David Sibley himself. One of the field trips I went on was with my buddy Clay and it was in depth digiscoping. He did a class (above) and the next day he took a group out for field trip that was geared to getting shots of birds in great light. I must admit, it was a refreshing change for me, to just be able to go on a field trip and really take time with birds, not just go out and tick off as many species as possible. We went to Santee Lakes for part of it and I was going over my photos, I noticed I had several shots of wood ducks!

The wood ducks were used to people coming around to feed them. As I was standing on a bridge looking out at the waterfowl, this male wood duck swam up and gave me an expectant look. I didn't even need to use the digiscoping equipment, he was too close. He stared momentarily and when I failed to produce anything remotely resembling food, he moved on looking for accommodating human.

Everyone in our group found a drowsy adult male wood duck on which to practice their digiscoping mojo. Another case of a bird behaving differently in another state. Wood ducks in Minnesota are rather cagey, but have a friendlier attitude in sunny San Diego.

As we were taking his photo, he suddenly perked up. You can't see in the photo, but not too far in front of him, a pair of wood ducks is waddling by. He started doing his wood duck whistle. As the pair continued without paying him too much mind, he started to settle back down on one foot, but still continued to whistle. I took a video. You'll hear Clay talking in the background as well as a great-tailed grackle:

Did you catch the size of that great-tailed grackle walking behind the wood duck?

I think this is my favorite of all of them. I love head-on shots of birds. More San Diego Bird Fest fun (and Guatemala) is on the way.

More Fun At The Finca El Pilar

I'm trying to do the posts about Guatemala in order, but I may have to switch around. I really want to write about the horned guan experience, but that was later in our trip. I think when I finish up the El Pilar part, I'm gonna dive right into the guan. Writing is kind of like dieting. If you deprive yourself writing on a topic you are craving, you can't stop thinking about it and start to cheat on the project you think you should work on. Even though I have not blogged the guan here, I have "cheated" and talked about in the radio (I love that I got a radio station to post a horned guan photo on their site) and I've created a Facebook group dedicated to it. But we need to finish Finca El Pilar, a great place to visit if you are staying in Antigua. Needless to say, more on the guan is coming.

But back to Finca El Pilar, the shade-grown coffee farm that is being converted into a private nature reserve. It was exciting for me on many levels--I love coffee, I appreciate shade-grown coffee because of the habitat benefits to birds, and El Pilar was chock full of familiar birds like Wilson's warbler and the unfamiliar birds like bushy-crested jay.

Which, let's take a side not to the name bushy-crested jay. For the most part, the birds in Guatemala had fairly accurate names like ruddy foliage-gleaner. The bird was ruddy and appeared to glean foliage for insects (what kind of strange world is this where birds resemble their names?). I was beginning to think that would not be the case with the bushy-crested jay, it looked like a grackle with blue wings to me. However, I was informed that when excited, they do have a bushy crest and do live up to their name.

Part of the reason we were in Guatemala was part of a conference on tourism to the area. It was hosted at Finca El Pilar and they set up a gorgeous welcome breakfast for us on a wooden deck with canopy. In front of it was another smaller wooden deck with canopy that housed about a dozen hummingbird feeders that buzzed with crazy looking birds!

For me, this was a refreshing site since I come from the land of mono-hummer. All we really get in Minnesota is the ruby-throated hummingbird. Not that a ruby-throat is a shlub of a bird. It's cool, but what a treat to see a hummingbird suddenly flash a purple cap and green gorget! That's a magnificent hummingbird, living up to it's hyped name.

Let's a get a closer look. For a hummingbird, it's rather beefy. According to Sibley, a ruby-throated averages 3.75" and a magnificent averages 5.25". It's a species that does occur north of the Mexico border into the US, it's possible to see it in southern Arizona and Nevada.

These two beauties are an azure-crowned hummingbird on the left and a berylline hummingbird on the right.

Even though there were tons of feeders to go around, the birds would continuously fight. There would be periods of absolute silence, but then all of a sudden one would appear and dozens more would come out of the trees to jockey for position at a particular feeder.

One could easily spend the day planted at the hummingbird feeding station waiting for the light to strike their feathers at just the right moment to get the great flashes of color. While there, we also saw many other species like the golden-olive woodpecker and heard my new favorite bird call: the brown-back solitaire. I have to give Non Birding Bill some props--he put the solitaire on as my new ring tone. He may not be a birder, but he sure knows how to make one happy.

El Pilar also has a newly installed stair way down into the coffee farms. We had some of our guides drive us up and drop us off so we could take the stairs all the way down. I figured it would be a piece of cake, going down is way easier than going up. However, this Midwestern girl is used to a flatter landscape and I found my legs felt like they were make of Jell-O by the time we reached the bottom. It was well worth it, we had emerald toucanets, spot-crowned woodcreeper, yellowish flycatcher, and a whole host of warblers, including a personal favorite--black-throated green warbler and Townsend's warbler. If ever I saw a benefit of shade-grown coffee to birds who nest in my home country, it was in Guatemala.

Everything about the forest surrounding the coffee farm was interesting to me. I couldn't help but check out the erosion along the soil walls on the way down. We visited during a dry season, but past rain had left its mark.

When not birding the crap out of El Pilar, we listened to some great speakers about local wildlife and tour operators and sampled some of the coffee. We learned that ever since the certification program to designate a coffee farm as a "shade-grown" farm had been put into place, 98% off the coffee grown in Guatemala was shade-grown. Another incentive for me too make sure that label is on my coffee. I did notice that some farms were shady than others, but it beats no trees whatsoever.

Finca El Pilar Birding In Guatemala

Don't forget, there's still time to vote for your favorite guest blog entry! So, what the heck was I doing in Central America? I was part of the Fifth International Birdwatching Encounter in Guatemala. It was group that included bird guides and bloggers from Japan, Denmark, the US, and even Ecuador. One of the participants was Rick Wright of WINGS Birding Tours and I felt like I got some kind of great deal because he's a walking field guide. What a treat to have his bird knowledge along. He really is a birder's birder, we were talking popular culture and he didn't know what a Cosmo Quiz was. You want to be out in the field with a guy who has his head filled with the finer nuances of empidonax flycatchers as opposed to "What Kind Of Sexy Are You?"

Where do I begin with my Guatemala adventure? I think with volcanoes. This was the first time I had ever been to a place so chock full of volcanoes. Let's face it, this was the first time I'd been out of the country (at least to the point where a passport was required). The whole time, I kept looking around and asking myself, "How the heck did I get here?"

Our first day of birding was at Finca El Pilar, a private shade grown coffee farm being converted into a nature reserve. We went above the coffee farm to get some of the local specialties and incredible views of the surrounding volcanoes. We birded a few days here so I'll have lots to tell you.

Some of the volcanoes that we encountered during our visit, like Fuego are active and you can see little puffs of smoke coming off the top all day long. I digiscoped some of Fuego's smoke above. How can you not feel like you're not on an adventure if you're surrounded by active volcanoes?

I was expecting a complete and total sensory overload when it came to the birds, but was incredibly surprised by the number of familiar faces down there, like this eastern bluebird. It had a bit of a different accent than the eastern bluebirds I hear up in Minnesota and one of the guides mentioned that it was a more local variety, down to having a duller look than the bluebirds I'm used to. Still, the first few days, their calls really tripped me up.

When I wasn't seeing species I could see at home, I was at least seeing species similar to what I can see at home. There were all kinds of crazy looking thrushes, check out this pair of rufous-collared robins (be prepared for rufous to show up a lot in species names, whoever named the birds in Central America really liked that in their names). It's a highland thrush and looks similar to robins we see in the US.

Another somewhat familiar bird was the black-headed siskin, here's a pair above. While the siskin irruption still rages in the US, I was still able to see some siskins at El Pilar.

Check out this rufous-collared sparrow (there's that rufous again). It's a great looking bird, reminiscent of a white-throated sparrow. These birds were seen all over. Speaking sparrows we did see some introduced species like house sparrows and rock pigeons, but this was the first birding trip that I ever been on where I did not encounter one single starling. No starlings here...can you imagine? Ten days and not seeing a starling--crazy!

While we were doing all this birding, I at one point could have sworn I heard several bees buzzing. I looked and could not see any hives nearby. I started to wonder if elevation sickness was closing in or if my tinnitus had switched from its usual high pitched ring to buzzing. Then I noticed a small water basin and took a peak...

There they were, a small swarm of honeybees gathering water for the hive. You sometimes can get honeybees coming to birdbaths or ponds when it's try, water is necessary for comb construction. I asked the owner of El Pilar and he said that he did not keep bees, but perhaps they were his neighbor's bees. Or they very well could have been from a wild hive. It was fun to hear that familiar buzzing.

We found a camper while above the coffee farm and I got a giggle at the Ron Paul sticker on the back. I didn't know anyone in Guatemala would be pro Ron Paul?

And now it is time for me to head into the Park Service. More on Finca El Pilar and Guatemala later.

And don't forget to vote for your favorite guest blog entry!

A Sampling Of Guatemala Hummingbirds

We interrupt the fabulous guest blog entries for a sampling of Guatemala hummingbirds. This country is amazing and I had no idea how immersed in Maya culture I would be while here.

Enjoy.

Finch Fight Club

The other day while we were doing a bee inspection, I kept an eye on Mr. Neil's finch feeder--they were chock full of common redpolls and pine siskins. You can see some of the tracking of pine siskins at Audubon's Great Backyard Bird Count website...interesting that they are calling it a winter finch invasion. I recall a few year ago when the thousands of great gray owls were in Minnesota, a couple of ornithologists' took me to to task for using the term "invasion" instead of "irruption" (apparently the proper term for ornithologists). I did some digiscoping and digivideoing while at Mr. Neils and even set up a couple of different motion sensitive cameras. Check out some of the finch hissy fits I got with the Wingscapes camera:

Redpolls fighting!

More fighting!

And yet more fighting!

And even picking on a poor little junco! Here's a digivideo of some of the sqaubbling on our 36" long finch feeder:

I Digiscoped A Famous Lesser Black-backed Gull!

While doing some gull watching at Daytona beach during the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, some of the more experienced gull watchers were super excited about a lesser black-backed gull. It's not so much that it was there, it's not out of the realm of possibility for a lesser black-backed gull to show up, but this one was banded, and one of the gull watchers (Michael Brothers) knew where this bird came from--and we all know how much I love a good bird banding story! Lesser black-backed gulls breed in Europe. They have been showing up more and more in North America and the suspicion has been that it's a matter of time before they start breeding in on this side of the Atlantic, if they have not already, but no one had documented a nest. That is, until the last two years. In 2007, a lesser black-backed gull was paired up and tending a nest with a herring gull on an island off of New Hampshire.

A same pairing was observed in the summer of 2008 and it is presumed that this is the same lesser black-backed gull, but this time, researchers were able to band the lesser black-backed gull and the herring gull and they also witnessed the copulation between the two--determining that the lesser black-backed was the male. They gave him the usual metal band, but also a green plastic band that is easier to read in the field: F05!

F05 apparently likes to spend his winters in Florida--this is so exciting! It's rare to get a recovery when it comes to banding, but the chance to track one while it's alive is such a treat. Thanks to the internet we can find his history and have some answers. You can read the whole story of the pairing, the banding process, and the hybrid chicks at this website. If you check it out, you can see that the bird I digiscoped above is wearing the same band as the lesser black-backed on the island off of New Hampshire.

Also, if you are frustrated with gulls and the fact that there are wacky hybrids that make gull id even more difficult, you can blame this dude, he's not helping.

Four Endgangered Species Day

When you go birding in Florida, frost is not what you expect to have to deal with. Before I headed to Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, I was sent emails regarding the weather. I noticed that the lows were in the thirties with highs in the 50s, but after dealing with -21, I figured I could take it. However, Florida ended up being a bit colder than I expected, apparently it was a record cold snap, the likes of which haven't been seen for 14 years. The field trip I signed up for was called the South Brevard County, and the timing was brutal: the bus left at 4: 30 am and returned at 4:30 pm--couple that with temperatures in the twenties, it made for a rough morning. I needed to be on this trip, there were two birds in particular that I wanted to see: Florida scrub-jay and red-cockaded woodpecker. I think sometimes people assume birders love getting up early to watch birds. I think for quite a few of us, we don't love getting up early. The hotel had a breakfast area set up for us starting at 3:30 am, but who wants to eat at that hour? At 3:45 am, I found myself staring into a bowl of Raising Bran, thinking, "What the hell am I doing with my life, why the hell am I here? What is wrong with me?"

But we had to bundle up. I did not bring my winter coat with me, but I did have a sweater and a couple of fleeces. I also stopped in to the local big box store's hunting and fishing section and picked up some hand warmers and proper gloves. Keep that in mind, folks, when you travel--if you need gloves or other outerwear to keep warm and the stores are telling you they have clearanced out winter because it's spring (even though the calendar reads January), you kind sensible outdoor gear in the hunting and fishing section.

Our tour bus headed to St. Sebastian River Preserve State Park, a small patch of habitat suitable for both of my target species. When we arrived, they let the group into the visitor center. The naturalists said that with the cold temperatures, even the woodpeckers found it more sensible to sleep in a little later, tucked into their tree cavities. As the sun started to peak up from below the horizon, it was time to head out. Because of the rough terrain, the tour bus could not take us to the red-cockaded woodpecker spot, it was quite a distance to walk and not all of our group would have been able to make the walk, so they loaded us into the backs of pick up trucks and we bounced our way there in the cold air.

We stopped at a group of trees known to be cavities of red-cockaded woodpecker. After about 10 minutes, one poked its head out, looking as though he felt the way I had felt a few hours earlier. This woodpecker is an endangered species. The cavity above is actually a "human made" cavity. The naturalists explained how the woodpeckers will reuse previously made cavities for years and they have devised a way of implanting a fake cavity into a live tree--without killing the tree. The red-cockaded specializes in mature open pine forest. Most of the woodpeckers we see in the US tend to go after dead and dying trees, this ambitious species makes it roost and nest cavity in a live tree (although the pine needs to have red-heart fungus, that does make it a bit softer). Now, that would not be a big deal if the bird had a beak like a pileated woodpecker, but this bird has a tiny beak, not unlike a downy woodpecker.

Above is a cross-section of a cavity pecked by an actual red-cockaded woodpecker. It's kinda tiny. The tree came down in a storm and the park uses it as a display. The tree needs to still be alive because the adult will peck holes around the cavity entrance, causing sap to flow, and making it harder for predators like snakes to slither up to the cavity.

The woodpeckers eventually came out of their cavities, but did not seem to want to stay in one spot. Much like humans, it's easier to move around and stay warm than just stand still. I didn't get the best photo, but it was still a treat to see this endangered species and you get an idea of what it looks like. Now, if you're like me, you might be wondering what the heck the red-cockaded means in the birds name. Boy-oh-boy-oh-boy, it's up there with the red-bellied woodpecker! First, a cockade is a knot of ribbons, usually on a hat. So, where is the red that would indicate the red-cockade on the woodpecker? Well, if you hold a red-cockaded woodpecker six inches from your face, you can see a tiny dot of red on the edge of the white cheekc patch where it meet the black on its nape (only on the male).

After watching the red-cockaded, we headed to more open scrubby area with shrub oaks and palmettos, habitat of the Florida scrub-jay. This particular species needs very specific habitat that Birds of North America Online describes as, "Extremely habitat-restricted, occurring only in scrub and scrubby flatwoods of Florida." Some of the essentials include: myrtle oak, runner oak, rusty lyonia, and Florida rosemary. The ground cover needs to be sparce, dominated by palmettos. The open sandy patches are needed for the scrub-jay to hide its cache of acorns. Very, very specific needs for this particular species.

But a very beautiful and cooperative one! The scrub-jays would pop up and just pose in the sun--much easier to digiscope than the red-cockaded woodpecker. The sun was getting higher at this point, the air was getting warmer. Looking at this gorgeous blue creature, I found myself answering the question I asked at 3:45 am, this is what I'm doing with my life. As I was watching my second endangered species of the day, I started to think about how it's incredibly unsafe to be inflexible. Florida is a study of inflexible creatures. Red-cockade woodpeckers have carved our a niche in a specific type of tree--so specific, the tree must have a specific type of fungus. The scrub-jay needs specific shrubs, but also specific spacing to store their food. Or think of the snail kite that only eats a certain type of snail. For species survival, it does not pay to be inflexible. It's important to get out of that comfort zone and generalize--hence the rock pigeon.

We did see several other species on our trip, like great views at a red-shouldered hawk above. If it looks weird, that's because its nictitating membrane is over the eye. Our local field trip leader was David Simpson and he was a good low key guide. Since it was a long field trip, he did a great job of setting our pace and birding so we could get good looks at the birds and more importantly, not get completely worn out. If you're ever looking for a good Florida bird guide, you should check him out.

Because it was so cold, the naturalists told us that we would probably see manatees if we went to the canal, the water was deeper and would be warmer. We headed over that way and there looked to be at least 60 manatees in the water, bobbing up and down, spraying water, and occassionally splashing their tails. That was the third endangered species of the day! After our field trip was done, I was heading back to my hotel and a wood stork ran in front of the road (well, as much as a wood stork can run). That was endangered species number four. I did not get a photo, because I was driving and concentrating on not hitting the stork or surrounding vehicles. But I do think that this is the first time I have seen four endangered species in one day.

Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park

My goodness, I'm tired and just about birded out (as well as incredibly itchy and somewhat stinky). The Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival should almost be called the Birder Reunion Bird Festival since so many of us show up here and connect. I started my Texas birding adventure with a field trip to Bensten-Rio Grande Valley State Park. This was the first place I birded the first time I came to this festival years ago. I love it because it gives you a good sample of the valley specialties. What makes this area to bird so fun is that for a Midwest Girl, you can find yourself in a tropical and exotic area on the cheap. Look at the water and the palm trees in the above photo--how could you not love that?

And the birds are crazy looking to add to the exotic appeal of this area, like the green jays. I never get tired of green jays. Seeing something like that makes you feel like you're on another planet, especially when your husband calls and tells you that it's snowing at home.

And it's not just the birds. Instead of squirrels under the feeder, Bentsen as javelinas! These guys were under every feeding station we visited and weren't that scared of humans, they must have a sense that we won't hunt them and I would guess they know humans are the ones who replenish the bird feeders.

Feeding javelinas is ill advised, as they can easily mistake a finger for a peanut butter sandwich and no one wants to go home with few fingers.

One of the coolest birds in the park was a roosting eastern screech owl. The bird is perched on the edge of a cavity in the tree trunk. Check out how well the bird's feathers blend in with the bark--incredible. This was a particularly exciting eastern screech owl, park staff told our group that it was a mccallii, and it's quite possible that the American Ornithologists' Union will make it a separate species from eastern screech owl. So, I kind of banked a life bird for another day.

Another specialty of the area is the buff-bellied hummingbird also known on Cornell's Birds of North America as the "least-studied hummingbird that occurs regularly in the United States." It's a Mexican species that breeds along the gulf coast and makes it across the border into the US.

Another part of birding in south Texas that is unique is watching helicopters for the border patrol pass by. This helicopter was really low and kept going down to one particular patch, leading us to wonder if some people illegally crossing the border had been found.

All part of the fun.

Okay, fatigue has hit me, more later.