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Beach

Remember the runaway buoy on the beach? There is more to the story, I’ve just been a little slow getting it out. The buoy washed up early in the week. After a few days a guy here in the park got a serial number off it and looked it up on the web. He found out who owned it and wrote an email to them. He had a response within ten minutes. The buoy was last seen in Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina. It arrived on our beach with 250 feet of anchor chain still attached to it. The owners were glad to hear where it was and sent a truck. They retrieved it and hauled it back to Louisiana. There must be more to this buoy than just a shell that floats. Must be some equipment inside. I wonder if they’ll put a gps in the next one before they float it.
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Birds

A hundred forty might sound like a lot of birds to see in a week, but it’s not. Not for the Valley. We weren’t making an effort to get the most birds we could; we just took a few looks for some rare birds and wrote down everything we saw in the meantime. We got some unusual ones. We got that one bird, the white throated robin that isn’t even in the North American bird books. It’s not like we’re the only one who got him though. He had been discovered in someone’s yard and there were people there every day watching for him. The red billed pigeon is a rare bird too. Even knowing where he is, you can watch for days and not get him though. We got lucky. We didn’t have to watch for days and saw six of them flying back and forth across the river. Of course we didn’t get every bird we looked for. We weren’t as lucky with the white collared seed eater. We were where the seedeater was; we knew he was there, but couldn’t get a look at him. We knew the section of the Rio Grande where the Muscovy ducks fly in the morning, but none flew past us the morning we were there. We’re trying to add birds to our life-list by looking for rare birds but it’s slow going. We’re considering changing our strategy for the harder to get birds. We’ll go out looking for them and write down the names of all the birds we don’t see. We’ll get to write down more names that way.
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Valley birding

We scored some cool birds while we were in the valley last week; 140 altogether. Some of the specialties and rarities: Black bellied whistling duckMexican mallardMottled duckPlain chachalacaLeast grebeNeotropic cormorantAnhingaBlack vultureWhite tailed kiteGray hawkHarris’s hawkWhite tailed hawkCrested caracaraSolitary sandpiperGull billed ternCaspian ternRed billed pigeonCommon ground doveWhite tipped doveGreen parakeetRed crowned parrotCommon pauraqueBuff bellied hummingbirdRinged kingfisherGreen kingfisherGolden fronted woodpeckerNorthern beardless tyrannuletVermilion flycatcherAsh throated flycatcherGreat kiskadeeCouch’s kingbirdScissor tailed flycatcherWhite eyed vireoPhiladelphia vireoGreen jayChihuahuan ravenBlack crested titmouseCarolina wrenClay colored robinWhite throated robin (try to find that one in your bird book)Long billed thrasherNashville warblerBlack throated green warblerYellow throated warblerBlack and white warblerLouisiana waterthrushWilson’s warblerYellow breasted chatSummer tanagerScarlet tanagerOlive sparrowCassin’s sparrowBotteri’s sparrowLincoln’s sparrowSwamp sparrowBronzed cowbirdHooded orioleAltamira orioleAudubon’s oriole
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Port aransas

It was hot in the Valley. Friday was 98 degrees. Saturday we drove back north to Gulf Waters. It’s cooler here; in the low eighties with a sea breeze. It was fun to go on a trip. It’s good to be back.