Thursday, May 19, 2016

More Pictures from South Texas

The Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park is one of the few places in the US where you are almost guaranteed to see an Altamira Oriole.


This one was busy trying (with little success) to build his nest on the wire. There were several "starts" that looked like air plants along the wire. Hopefully, this one went better.


Black-bellied Whistling Ducks are another South Texas specialty although I have seen them in Florida.


...and the ever-present Chachalacas.


On Saturday we took a guided walk with a Naturalist through some wonderful habitat. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the place - I'll have to check with Cheryl.


Our guide took us to a portion closed to other visitors so we could see the nesting Green Parrots.



Too cute! Rabbits are just too photogenic!


Another treat - a Long-billed Thrasher. Apparently the Long-billed and Curved-billed Thrashers look extremely similar. I'll bet I mis-identified this on our last trip in 2013.




Cheryl spotted this Texas Lizard.


This is a Couch's Kingbird - or is it a Tropical Kingbird?


Doves! We saw lots of Doves. This is a small Inca Dove.


 Here the Inca Dove is next to a White-winged Dove so you can see the difference in size.


The whole time we were visiting, Cheryl tried to find us a Road-runner. Laura and Cheryl have seen them in their front yard (so they said) but try as they might, they were no where to be found! Bill and I took a ride one afternoon down around the border (and met lots of nice Border Patrol) and when we got back we proudly showed then the picture of the Road-runner we found!


1 comment:

Elizabeth said...

Fantastic bird pictures!!! Would love to see some of these for sure -- you must have upped your life list a lot!!!!