More new birds

We made the long haul into Mission Texas to visit the World Birding Center, and we were glad we did! New birds galore! The World Birding Center is located in Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park right along the Rio Grande and the Mexican border. Our first new bird was the Golden-Fronted Woodpecker. It looked a great deal like the Ladder-back Woodpeckers we would see in Port Aransas, but are a fair bit smaller.

Next, we spotted a Long-billed Thrasher. They look a great deal like a sparrow only are bigger and have a very long tail. We ended up seeing several of them before the day was up.

We ended up seeing a couple of Orioles that were new to us, but only managed to get a shot of one of them. This Altamira Oriole was striking deep orange. His black face couple with the black and white striping on his wings was a great combination. We also spotted a Hooded Oriole. They are virtually identical, except that the body of the Hooded Oriole is a lighter orange, almost yellow tinted a bit.

We spotted a Pyrrhuloxia. At first, we thought we were looking at the female Cardinal, but looking it up in our Sibley’s bible it was clear that Cardinal females did not have the crest like the males. After searching a lot, it became apparent that what we had seen was a Pyrrhuloxia, which generallyinhabits Mexico but in the winter, hits the very Southern tip of Texas. 

We were reminded how the US/Mexico border changes as frequently as the route of the Rio Grande River flows. Over our trips we have seen missions that were originally built North of the Rio Grande, but are now South, or vice versa. Inside the World Birding Center grounds, we discovered a 1925 official border marking, that today is perhaps a mile North of the current border.

Before heading out of McAllen we visited the National Butterfly Center. We went here for two reasons – the Woman loves butterflies, and the current plans of the Trump administration call for the border wall to go right through the center of this 100-acre park. We wanted to see it before it was gone. The docent there warned us that as the winds had kicked up a bit, the resident butterflies were likely spooked. But we managed to find quite a few and were please we came.

Talk to you soon!