Texas Day Two

Yellow-breasted Chat, in a class by itself

It seems a good time to go back to my Texas trip photo memories before I lose track of it entirely. Day Two was a travel day from Del Rio, where we had spent the night, to Big Bend National Park where we stayed three days. Of course we birded along the way.

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks

Yesterday I turned on the reluctant travel laptop to see if it was in any mood to let me look at my Texas pictures. Lo and behold I found more images, and the amazing thing is that I was allowed to process them, so here is everything from that travel day, including the domestic waterfowl below which adorned the first stop.

Northern Shoveler and Blue-winged Teal

Travel notes from my cell phone… I love the rugged terrain of Southwest Texas.

A view of the Rio Grande along the way

It was nice to revisit species I have seen before. Some I saw much better than on previous occasions, while others like the Rufous-Crowned Sparrow below, eluded the camera, even though fairly common. And then there were the life birds.

Rufous-crowned Sparrow
Brown-headed Cowbirds
Olive Sparrow – a lifer which looked much better than the lighting allowed

The Morelet’s Seedeater is not exactly new, if I can believe I have seen a White-Collared Seedeater before. Anyway, it’s been split into its own species, so that makes it a life bird. We searched for this guy for a while and then he practically followed us around for the next quarter hour or more.

Lesser Goldfinch I have seen before, maybe not so well.
Orchard Oriole we get in the Chicago area, though not as common as Baltimore Oriole.
House Finch (of the original population!), not the ones that crowd my backyard.

It would have been nice to see a Western Meadowlark but this Eastern Meadowlark posed nicely for us.

Eastern Meadowlark

I’ve glimpsed Ladder-backed Woodpeckers in New Mexico but have never seen them so well as on this trip.

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

Then to see some old friends really well…

Golden-fronted Woodpecker (female) with White-Winged Dove
Lark Sparrow
Hepatic Tanager
Blue Grosbeak

We arrived at the Chisos Mountain Lodge in Big Bend National Park, checked into our rooms and witnessed this sunset outside the dining hall that evening.

Chisos Mountains sunset

Meanwhile back home, it’s intermittent thunderstorms and cooler weather. I am fond of rain, but not so much.

While I Was Looking For Last Year’s Tax Return…

Iguana 2-14-09

Iguana

It used to be I’d run into a box of old photographs and be whisked away to the memories contained therein. Now, over the weekend while I was looking for whatever media device on which I managed to save last year’s tax return, after exhausting every flash drive I’ve been able to find to no avail, I found an unlabeled CD with…pictures from February of 2009, a trip to Belize and more specifically, a visit to found Tikal in Guatemala!  In particular, Tikal was a magical place. So here’s what I found on the CD.

Collared Aracaris w Grapes Tikal 2-20-09

Collared Aracaris (Tikal)

Green Kingfisher 2-15-09

Green Kingfisher

Turtle 2-15-09

I am having a hard time identifying this turtle but it’s lovely.

Black-collared Hawk (Lamanai)

Snail Kite (I just lightened this up a bit from the original)

Spider Monkey

Boat-billed Heron

Keel-billed Toucan (Tikal)

Black-headed Trogon (Tikal)

Anhinga

Hepatic Tanager

Bare-throated Tiger Heron

Great Kiskadee

Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher

Red-Lored Parrot (Tikal)

Oscellated Turkey (Tikal) – my favorite

Aztec Parakeet-Tikal-2-21-09

Aztec Parakeet (Tikal)

I’ll be back as soon as life slows down a bit. More to come. In the meantime, I hope you find as peaceful, brief, and colorful a diversion in these pictures as I did.

Green Heron

Belize – Past and Future

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Ocellated Turkey

I have to get up in a couple hours to leave in the middle of the night for the airport. I wasn’t planning on getting this down-to-the-wire but as the saying goes, stuff happens. Anyway I hope I am basically ready enough and have not forgotten anything important. Hope to be back very soon with updates to some of the photos reproduced here that I found from my first trip to Belize in 2009. At the time I was using an EOS 40D and a Tamron 70-300mm lens, I think.

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Hepatic Tanager

As far as I can tell the forecast is for mid-80 degree weather with a 20% or so chance of rain. Quite a difference from what I’ve been getting at home the last couple months.

Boat-Billed Heron

Boat-Billed Heron

I hope to be back to the blog in a week and a half with a full report.

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Anhinga

Goodnight!