Pooped Out of Texas...Catharus PTSD...The Imminent Hangover

Sabal Palm Sanctuary is the place to go in the valley for Least Grebe this summer. They are easy to see at close/crushable range, and word has it they are nesting as well. The only other places I picked up this ghastly grayling on this trip were Pollywog Pond (Corpus Christi) and Ester Llano Grande (Pharr).

Hello admirers, friends, frenemies, and lurking trolls...I thought it would be prudent to give a quick update from The Road. Suddenly I find myself at the ass end of another field season. I have been pooped out of the bowels of the Lower Rio Grande Valley into the great big toilet of the American West. My exit featured a bird-heavy (and occasionally whiskey-soaked) route from Austin through southeast Arizona, and now I find myself with old friends in Flagstaff. Good birds have abounded this spring, and I am lucky to have survived another productive season without slipping rank in Global Birder Ranking System. I bask in the light of the smiling gods of birding...there is nothing like it.

Except, perhaps, good whiskey.

It was great to see so many Stilt Sandpiper this spring. Crisp breeding plumage birds lie somewhere on the spectrum between Economy of Style and Facemelt. Their appeal does exactly rip your eyes out, but you don't have to look very hard to see it either. They are captivating, in fact. I must find a name for this zone of appearance/appeal. Oh, that's a Lesser Yellowlegs on the right, if you were wondering. Estero Llano Grande WBC, TX.

How about another "Valley Specialty"? Here is a White-tailed Hawk. I had a lot of fun trying to separate these from Swainson's Hawks at great distance, while soaring. My findings? It's not always easy, but at least GBRS gave me some points for the effort. Hidalgo County, TX.

Warblers, like this confiding Blackpoll, really stole the show for me this spring. I never did get the Swainson's I was looking for, but I don't mind needing an excuse to get back to the Gulf Coast in spring! Fuck! South Padre Island, TX.

Gray-cheeked Thrush was a bird I was happy to get to see more of in April and May. Catharus are a bitch, huh? For weeks I had to sit back and watch birders absolutely slaughter the identification of thrushes, left and right. I think having to see so many blown calls gave me some kind of PTSD. South Padre Island, TX.

This Groove-billed Ani was an ABA bird for me. In fact, it was the only one I recorded while I was down there, which is unusual because they are actually fairly common by now. Birding is weird. The ani was sunning itself, shortly after sunrise, in a roadside mesquite. Hidalgo County, TX.

Let's tie it all up with a Least Tern, a bird of Texas and a bird of California, which is where I will be seeing my next one. More coverage from Texas (and southeast Arizona) coming up soon. Such good birding the past few months! A birding hangover is imminent. Photographed at South Padre Island, TX.

Red-headed Woodpecker...Blackpolls and Butthurt...One for the Herpers

This is the celebrity Red-headed Woodpecker that spent some time on South Padre Island this spring. I've only seen a few ever before, so you can bet I was deep into the stoke when I saw this. What made it even better was that when I first heard about it, I specifically did not chase this bird, even though it was only a block away. A big crew of geri were sprinting/scuttling/hobbling/limping over to the woodpecker and I thought it would give me a better chance to find the Cerulean Warbler that was in the area. This tactic failed miserably, but at least the woodpecker was still present several days later.

Unlike everyone else who were practicing their wildlife harassment skills on this bird, I just stood next to a tree it liked and was within a few minutes rewarded with a crush. What a crippler!

One thing that this bird made painfully obvious was how annoying and indifferent photographers can be with birds. Although you can easily witness this yourself on any spring day on South Padre Island, this bird seemed to constantly have some tool mercilessly chasing it around the convention center, for days on end. It's not like flushing a bird is a big deal (well...sometimes it is), but this woodpecker had a whole harassment crew to keep it as bummed out as possible. Wankers.

People don't seem to realize that birds will often just beg you to crush them if you don't try to chase them out of the state. Pictured is a Scarlet Tanager, not giving a fuck.

To all the colorblind birders out there...I am truly sorry. You have my sympathies.

This female Scarlet Tanager that spent a weekend at the convention center was one of tamer birds I've met this spring. Once she became addicted to oranges, she would do anything for a wedge.

Blackpoll! How poignant.

My, what crisp plumage you have. Such orange legs you possess.

A Blackpoll Warbler utters an otherworldly bellow from the convention center's water feature. It's pretty funny hearing all the seething photogs whine and pine for how the water feature used to be set up, when the birds were more exposed and had to come closer to people to take a drink or bathe. There is some serious butthurt going on out there.

Speaking of butthurt, that's how I was planning on feeling if I didn't get a good look at a Gray-cheeked Thrush this spring. I had only seen one ever before, and that was for a whopping 10 seconds, about 10 years ago, at Marblehead Neck in Massachusetts. Well, my butt does not hurt and my ass does not ache. Gray-cheeked Thrush has become pretty predictable on SPI, for the time being.

More than one birder has told me, discreetly, of his/her fixation with vireos. Well, this one is for you. I thought I would be seeing a lot of Red-eyed Vireos this year...that has not been the case. I reckon this is my best photo of one for the year (it's been weeks since I've seen one), and I'm pretty happy with it.

Have I seen my last Hooded Warbler of the spring? Yeah. It's a sad state of affairs.

The Hooded Warbler is enthusiastic about being near the ground. Not so much as an Ovenbird, but if you get warbler neck from looking at a Hooded Warbler, you are either suffering from an extreme case of stunted growth already or you are misidentifying the bird entirely. While many birders suffer from various renditions of stunted emotional growth, I find the latter scenario more likely.

Finally...one for the herpers. I was told this is a Laredo Striped Whiptail, which one can find many of at the Sheepshead lot on South Padre. Most I have seen have not been this large, or so cerulean. Whiptails are parthenogenic, aka have Virgin Mary powers. The mind reels.