I’m Alive, I’m Back, I Have Pictures

I have just returned from a week of birding and camping in south Texas and along the Texas coast. The trip was mostly wonderful, with good birds, great temperatures, and lots of opportunities for pictures.

Here’s a couple of my favorites that came from the week. It’s a Palamedes Swallowtail, taken at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.

For those interested in only the pictures, go have a look at the album.

For those interested in where we went, what we saw, and what our impressions were, keeping reading below the fold. I’ve written up a lengthy personal account of the trip.

Caught a movie and a couple of books

The trip started off nice with a couple of days in San Antonio with my wife’s parents. We caught a movie, Failure to Launch. It was barely funny, but I mention it because the ending scene involves birding and I got a laugh. I also picked up a couple of books — Finding Darwin’s God by Ken Miller and Genome by Matt Riley. The first is by a Christian biochemist; the latter is the story of the human species, told chromosome by chromosome. With my reading list so backed up, I’m sure I won’t get around to reading them for months.

If you wish hard enough, you can change reality

So we left San Antonio late, and by the time we ended up at Falcon State Park, it was 10:43pm. And wouldn’t you know it — they closed the gate at 10:00pm. For some time, I stared down the park road as it disappeared into the distance. It was too far to walk in, but I wanted to. I wanted to just somehow open that gate, or get around it. I was torn between just setting up our tent on the ground outside the gate, or trying to camp in a nearby county park (which I understand can be shady at times). My 10 minutes of wishing paid off. A park ranger appeared from nowhere, and after an eager chat about birding and photography, opened the gate and let us through.

Common Pauraque were calling everywhere, and we walked around (about midnight by now) to get a few looks with the help of the flashlight.

The next day we birded Chapeño and Salineño. My wife is probably the first person ever to see her first Brown Jay before seeing her first Green Jay (which we saw a few hours later in the day). We also had most of the other regular valley specialty birds.

Camping at Bentsen Rio-Grande State Park

One of the highlights of the entire trip was camping in Bentsen Rio Grande State Park. There was quite the controversy a few years back when they closed off car access to the park, and drastically reduced the available space for camping. They closed down their campsites and designated a small area for primitive camping only. You now take a tram into the park, which runs on a 30 minute schedule from 7am to 4pm. (It doesn’t leave until 7:30am on weekends, I think).

I expected to be greatly inconvenienced. As it turns out, the whole experience was surprisingly pleasant. In fact, it was downright wonderful. The driver of the tram drove over to the parking lot so that we could load up all our gear straight from our car and dropped us off right by the camping spot. The first night, we were only people in the park.

As we birded the park, I was struck by how nice it was not having to deal with traffic. No cars to run you over as you walked down the roads, no noise. Several people had seen bobcats walking around in the park — something that would not have happened in the past with all the traffic. (This is a very popular destination for a state park, and gets lots of visitors.)

The whole experience was incredibly peaceful and relaxing. I’ve got to admit it — not having cars in the park has made the place much nicer to visit.

Toyota Corolla — the Ultimate Offroad Vehicle

After birding at Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge, going back to Bentsen and gathering up our stuff, we headed down to Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary, outside Brownsville, to look for Grey-crowned Yellowthroat. We arrived just before 5pm, only to be told that they closed at 5pm. Arrgh! All that driving for nothing.

So we headed north, needing a place to camp. Highway 4 goes out east another 20 miles to Boca Chica, on the beach. Our 11 year old road atlas showed a county park (to the north of Boca Chica) and a state park (to the south) suitable for camping, so we thought we’d check it out. Upon arriving at the end of the road, we were met with a vast beach, with no real roads and no signs or human structures in site. In fact, Texas Parks and Wildlife’s website shows Boca Chica on its map, but doesn’t have a link to it in its list of parks. But we didn’t know that at the time.

There were paths leading north and south along the beach. The sand looked fairly compact. “Let’s drive a little… Maybe it’s just around the bend” we said to ourselves. It started off fine, but suddenly, the sand turned deep. I downshifted into first gear and floored it. So at this point, we’re in a foot of sand, and I’m still heading the wrong direction… Where to turn around? I finally came up to a large pickup truck with people, and there was a patch of sand that looked less sandy. I figured at the worst, if I got stuck, it would be very good to do it next to someone with a large truck. So I turned around, and somehow didn’t get stuck. It was a good thing too because the tide was quickly rising. Had we gotten stuck, without anyone around, I would have just abandoned the car as the tide came in. I’m not sure if my insurance covers stupidity or not, but luckily I didn’t have to find out.

And luckily for us, the Toyota Corolla is the ultimate offroad vehicle.

Rotting Meat and Night Dolphins

So we headed to Adolph Thomae Jr. County Park, just outside Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. We pulled in late, and drove around to find a place suitable to throw up a tent. The two areas we saw for tent camping are a ways off from the bathrooms and fishing piers. These areas tend to get lots of traffic at night, when lots of fisherman are out.

We found a place that was secluded a bit and looked good, but man did it smell bad. Rather than throwing up a tent, I just wanted to throw up. I turned on my headlight, and saw rotting meat on the ground and the picnic table. I grabbed a bag and began to pick up trash. Rotting shrimp used as bait, old bits of chicken and beef on the ground. I picked up two bags of trash, including bottles and dirty diapers around us. I figured that would knock the smell down some, without the breeze wafting the smells our way.

We were just about ready to say this was the worst place ever, when something magical happened.

Adolph Thomae (and Laguna Atascosa) lies just west of a lagoon or estuary. Further east lies South Padre Island. There is an arroyo — a narrow man made channel of water — that cuts through the park. This saltwater channel functions as way to transport goods on small ships all the way down to McAllen, in the valley. People fish in this channel, and in the light from the pier, we were watching the fish jump out of the water. A very large splash and ripple caught our attention. I thought someone had caught a large fish, as this ripple was near the pier.

My wife got her binoculars on the spot and suddenly exclaimed, “is that a shark!? It has a dorsal fin.” And right after she said it, I heard the pssshhh of a blowhole exhaling. “Their dolphins!” I said with much excitement. We watched a group of these night dolphins for 15 minutes and estimated the size of the pod to be around six or seven. I don’t know a ton about Texas dolphin distribution (I learned more here), but I would bet they were bottle-nosed dolphins.

In the midst of a dirty campsite and neighbors blaring that one song (I biasedly refer to all Tejano / Mexican music as that one song), we were fixated on the beauty in front of us.

That’s what I love about birding. Most people would take one whiff of Adolph Thomae and head for the hotel room. Most people would miss the night dolphins.

Chasing Rare Birds — Sometimes Fun, Many Times Frustrating

We birded the morning at Laguna Atascosa. This place always rocks, providing more species in a given day that just about any place in the valley. The rarest bird we personally found on the trip was a Brown Thrasher at Laguna. I managed to get this wretched picture of the bird.

After that, we drove down to Sabal Palm (again) to try for Grey-crowned Yellowthroat. There are apparently two of the birds at the sanctuary. This species is common further south in Mexico, but quite rare in Texas, with only a handful of records. I had one bird singing its head off. Finding it was a different story. The bird was in tall cane grass habitat. I got two brief glimpses (a new state bird for me) but couldn’t get my wife on the bird before it disappeared back in the grass each time. The fact that the wind was slightly blowing and moving all the grass didn’t help either. A very cooperative Buff-bellied Hummingbird hopefully made up for her missing the bird.

A trip afterwards into Brownsville looking for Tamaulipas Crow was an utter waste of time as well.

Whooping Cranes and Spring Break Crowds

We made a good drive from the valley up the coast and camped the next two nights at Goose Island State Park.

In the morning, we visited Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The highlight for me was Whooping Cranes. I’ve seen somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 bird species, but I’ve never made the trip to Aransas at the right time of year. This was a new bird. Other highlights included the Palamedes Swallowtails (the butterflies pictured above), alligators (I got good pictures), and a bobcat. The gators and the bobcat were a first for my wife, and she was as excited (or more) about them than the birds.

In the afternoon we headed to Port Aransas to walk the boardwalk through the marsh at their waste water plant. We braved crowds of spring breakers and the lines at the ferry. It was well worth it. A Least Bittern and a Sora were both extremely cooperative, giving great looks right off the boardwalk.

Sand-blasted in the Face for Five Straight Hours

On the last day of the trip, we decided to chase a rare bird. Though I hadn’t really planned it this way, this was the day that I would truly test my wife’s ability to withstand birding. A Surfbird had been seen a couple of times within the previous week, and we hit the road towards Galveston Island in search of it. Surfbirds prefer rocky habitats. They breed in Alaska and winter along the west coast. Texas has very few records.

When we showed up, the wind was blowing at 45 mph with gusts even higher. It picked up fine particles of sand and blasted us in the face every time we got out of the car. Galveston has a series of rock jetties, spaced a couple of hundred yards apart, that stick out into the ocean. The particular jetty where the bird was last seen was unoccupied, so we drove along stopping at each jetty, setting up the scope and searching for the bird.

After striking out, we made a brief stop at the Texas City Dike (between Houston and Galveston) to look for a Long-tailed Duck that had been seen the day before. With the winds so atrocious, we missed it too.

We had 171 species on the trip though. It was wonderful getting to bird every day, and I saw all these birds for the first time again, through the eyes of my wife who’d never been to any of these places. That was the best part for me.

And again, if you haven’t seen them yet, be sure to look at the pictures.