Over the past week Anzalduas Park has been the site of repeated Zone-Tailed Hawk and Hook-Billed Kite sightings, so expectations were high. But the weather had other things in mind, and it rained all day.
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| The Border Wall/Levee at Anzalduas. The weather did not improve from this. |
Fortunately for us, the first part of today's Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival Trip was a pelagic of sorts: a tour of the riverine borderland that is the Rio Bravo/Grande. And our pontoon boat had a roof, so we remained fairly dry the first 2 hours as we drove slowly up and down to Anzalduas Dam.
As a constant reminder of where we were and the politics at stake, we saw plenty of border control presence.
Highlights were a Gray Hawk flying across the river in front of the boat (where I was), numerous Green Kingfishers, and several Black Phoebes hanging out at docks and railings.
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| Folks, this is what is called a record shot, not photography. Black Phoebe on a boat ramp railing. |
Once we got to Azalduas Park after the boat ride, it became clear that we were going to get very wet. Hope of a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet waned as we got wetter and wandered around between heavy downpours. Aside from a pocket of Orange-Crowned Warblers, Blue-Gray Gnatcatchers, Ruby-Crowned Kinglets and Black Crested Titmice, we found no Tyrannulet. Our consolation was the cacophony of twenty of these:
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| Great Kiskadee |
The rare bird of the day was actually—hold onto your hats—House Finch. Rare everywhere in the Valley, for some reason they are regular here at Anzalduas. I even took pictures.
Tomorrow the forecast is for continuing, but perhaps gradually tapering rain. The weekend, mercifully, looks promising.
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