Last Day of the RGVBF

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Landing Gear is Down

For me, the final day of the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival was memorable, but not for the reasons I had hoped.  Certainly the people were great and the birds we saw were wonderful, if few in numbers.  However, I had really been looking forward to seeing the Santa Ana NWR.  After all, it has a reputation as being one of the jewels of the national park system.  Its brochure brags that it has the second largest bird list in the nation.  However, what I found was a scene of wide-spread destruction and very little of the original habitat that made the park famous.

One of the park volunteers related the story.  In 2010 the area was hit by a hurricane and, shortly thereafter, a massive “rain event” that settled over Mexico and dumped loads of rain on the area.  The result was that the park was under 10 – 12 feet of water.  To make matters worse, the dam system along the Rio Grande held the water in place for a long time.  The results were devastating.  Thousands of ancient hardwood trees were killed.  Today they lie, bleak and broken and in heaps where once there was gorgeous bird-friendly habitat.  It was so incredibly sad.

That said, we made the trip to the park arriving not too long after sunrise.  We started around the new visitors’ center, which is a nice facility with a bird feeder area that was very active.  Green Jays, Red-winged Blackbirds, a Great Kiskadee, some House Sparrows, and a few Great-tailed Grackles flew in and out in a steady stream.

Soon we headed out to the park itself.  Immediately we had a Neotropic Cormorant fly over us, followed a few moments later by a Sharp-shinned Hawk and an American Pipit.  Then we started up the path and I saw the extent of the destruction.  Heartbreaking.  Still, we found Ladder-backed and Golden-fronted Woodpeckers and a small mixed flock of Black-crested Titmice, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and Orange-crowned and Yellow-rumped Warblers.  We also heard a Long-billed Thrasher calling, but he didn’t show himself.  And hunkered down under a couple of fallen branches was a female Northern Bobwhite.

Black-bellied Whistling Duck

The first pond was filled with Black-bellied Whistling Ducks like those pictured on this page.  There were also Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, a Solitary Sandpiper and a couple of Killdeer.  We heard a Marsh Wren calling, but I never saw it.  We were also treated to an aerial display by a large flock of swallows that included Barn, Cave, Bank and Northern Rough-winged Swallows.  Despite the wind, the swallows darted and dove while feeding on the abundant bugs.  There were also a number of Mottled Ducks and Northern Shovelers in one pond and American Wigeon and Gadwalls in another.

Unfortunately, I never got up into the hawk-watch tower.  Another group from the festival (one of the chase vans) was up there for hours searching for their target bird, the Hook-billed Kite.  Apparently they got it, but I didn’t. Oh well, that’s birding!  I got 126 species including 25 lifers during the week, and I raised my life list to 400, so I have no complaints.  It was a wonderful experience from beginning to end.