Louisiana May-June

Away from the NYC area I took advantage of a conference trip to New Orleans in late May into June to do a little birding for one of my nemesis birds: Bachman's Sparrow. Via my own research and a lot of helpful advice from TX birders they weren't all that hard to find at Boykin Springs and another site, both near Jasper TX in the pine woods at the eastern edge of the state. As a bonus I saw two Red-cockaded Woodpeckers at the second site, these being my second and third RCWO respectively.

June is going to be the month for trips - I'm off on a pacific northwest trip in two weeks.

Very out of area - Texas

To leverage some of the vacation time that PU gives me over New Year's I made a trip to Texas fron 12/29-1/6 to cover the usual Rio Grande spots plus rarities. Car rental at San Antonio was much cheaper than Houston (have they jacked the prices there?) and I found a cheap flight via American. Best birds were the long-standing Northern Jacana at Choke Canyon State Park and the Bare-throated Tiger-Heron at Bentsen Rio Grande State Park. The former was one basis for making the trip, the latter was a pure bonus and the first US record for this species.

Trip report under edit, to be linked here in due course.

Very out-of-area: Texas, December 2008

I flew to Dallas mainly for personal reasons, but predictably I was unable to resist tacking a little birding onto the trip while I was there. Missing my outbound flight compressed the schedule somewhat, and the occurrence of two rarities (Crimson-collared Grosbeak and Blue Bunting) in the lower Rio Grande Valley led me to go there yet again, skipping most intermediate sites.

1,500 miles later I flew back out of Dallas in the afternoon of the 30th.

The trip added a few new year birds (LeConte's Sparrow, Sprague's Pipit, Sedge Wren etc) and one life bird (female Crimson-collared Grosbeak). I ended the year at 612 USA species (all lower 48) and a 2008 list of 367 - actually my highest total outside the big year 450+ totals.

Trip report (in edit): http://www.philjeffrey.net/TX2008Dec.html

Out of area - Texas trip - April 10th-18th

Just made it back from a very productive trip to Texas. Starting off in San Antonio the route led through the hill country, down to the Rio Grande Valley where I spent most of the time, then back up to the coastal bend before flying out of San Antonio.

Here's the trip report for this April 2008 Texas trip (under edit) .

Experiencing a remarkable string of luck, I found life birds on each of the first five days: Black-capped Vireo, White-throated Robin, Red-billed Pigeon, Hook-billed Kite, White-collared Seedeater, Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, Groove-billed Ani and Aplomado Falcon.

I'm sure the mosquito bites will go away eventually.