Archive for the ‘Falcon Heights’ Category

More from South Texas

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Have been at Falcon State Park for a week. This is where you start seeing pyrrhuloxia (above). They are one of the calmer birds who don’t fly away the minute they see you. An online article said they should have been named desert cardinals rather than pyrrhuloxia.

My first sighting of a northern bobwhite (above). Grackles imitate bobwhite sounds and search through the brush for nests with eggs.

Orange-crowned warblers are very common here.

Yellow-rumped warbler

Ladder-backed woodpecker with peanut butter.

Swamp sparrow

A hispid cotton rat. Looks like a hamster. There is lots of brush for them to hide in. Bobcats have been seen in the area and these rats are something they’d hunt for.

Birds seen in the area, but not pictured: one white-tailed kite, a pair of caracaras, cactus wrens, roadrunners, and several loggerhead shrikes. The shrikes were always perched on barbed wire surrounding private property. They are known for impaling their prey on barbed wire.

Below, a Harris’ hawk and a great kiskadee. I’ll miss seeing the kiskadees as I head north.

Posted in Falcon Heights, State, bobwhite, hawk, kiskadee, pyrrhuloxia, warbler, woodpecker | No Comments »

Oriole Time

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

The Salineño Bird Refuge (aka USFWS Kepler Tract) is next to the Rio Grande River a few miles from Falcon Dam. There is a caretaker on site who puts out food for the birds. It is a place where you can see three different orioles at the same site.

Above, an male altamira oriole on the left, and a female hooded oriole on the right. The altamira orioles are the largest of the orioles.

Male hooded oriole

Male, juvenile hooded oriole.

Audubon’s oriole with a mealworm.

The altamira oriole on the left kept hissing at the great kiskadee on the right, until the kiskadee responded.

One green jay try’s a mealworm, while the other one sticks to peanuts. Mealworms have to be a rare treat. The kiskadees were really going after them. They have never seemed interested in the regular bird food I put out.

Random musings: The central Rio Grande Valley between the towns of Weslaco and Mission seems like a unique mix of people. You have a large population of winter Texans, mostly older and white, and a large population of young hispanics. A lot of the winter Texans come from midwest farming states. Many of the rv parks offer a lot of social activities. I talked to a man when I took my truck in for an oil change who has been coming here for 20 years. He and his wife love to dance, and there are lots of dances here. He also has a mobile home in Maine. They spend summers in Maine and winters in Texas and fly between the two sites.

The rv park I stayed at in Alamo charges around $2,000 for 6 months occupancy and 6 months storage. If you put a mobile home on the site, you are kind of stuck, as it is not easy to move a mobile home. The man I talked to said he owned the land his home is on, but that is probably rare.

Heard a lot of sirens this visit, at least one every 2 or 3 hours. All I saw were ambulances, no police cars. This may reflect on the large number of older people here and some large hospitals in the area.

Below, an orange-crowned warbler and a singing black-crested titmouse at the Frontera Audubon site.

Posted in Alamo, Falcon Heights, jay, kiskadee, oriole, titmouse, wildlife refuge | No Comments »

Salineño Bird Refuge & the Rio Grande River

Friday, January 30th, 2009

Altamira orioles

Ringed kingfisher along the Rio Grande River.

Posted in Falcon Heights, green jay, heron, kingfisher, oriole, wildlife refuge | No Comments »

Salineño Bird Refuge

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

The Salineño Bird Refuge (aka USFWS Kepler Tract) is some land next to the Rio Grande River a few miles from Falcon Dam and Falcon State Park. It belonged to some birders and was left to the government to be kept as a birding refuge that birders could visit. It is a place you can go to see three different orioles in one place.

Above, a great kiskadee and green jay enjoy some peanut butter.

Altamira oriole

Male hooded oriole (top) and female hooded oriole (lower).

Audubon’s oriole

Ladderbacked woodpecker

Thrasher

Ladderbacked woodpecker

Unfortunately inner Falcon State Park, away from the water, is overrun with mockingbirds that chase away a lot of the other birds. There are flocks of pyrrhuloxia. Have seen some roadrunners and quail, but they are pretty elusive.

Below, view towards Mexico at sunset.

Posted in Falcon Heights, State, kiskadee, oriole, pyrrhuloxia, sunset, thrasher, wildlife refuge, woodpecker | No Comments »

Falcon State Park

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

I have moved 50 miles northwest to Falcon State Park. Was surprised to find the rv section about 80% full. When I was here last March it was already really warm, in the 90′s and 100′s, and was not nearly so full. Winter is the prime season here. A lot of the rv people still have their Christmas decorations out, so many have been here a while. The water & electric sites are pull-through and you have a lot of privacy. The full hookup area seems more dense with a lot of motor homes.

The way here: Highway 83 changes from an expressway to a regular highway with two lanes on each side, right after the turn off for the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park. At the town of Roma, it becomes a two-lane highway. The end of the expressway is also the end of all the newly constructed national chain stores and fast food outlets. It is hard to even find a grocery store.

The bird above is a pyrrhuloxia, a member of the cardinal family. The main difference from a Northern cardinal is the yellow bill and the long pointed crest.

The water level in the reservoir is high and encroaching on some of the parks’ picnic and camping sites. The egret above is hunting near a picnic table with water lapping underneath it.

Update: Found out the high water level is from hurricane Dolly. There was a drought here for 10 years until Dolly brought a huge amount of rain within a short time.

Vermilion flycatcher above, cormorants below.

Posted in Falcon Heights, State, cormorants, egret, pyrrhuloxia, vermilion flycatcher | 1 Comment »