I spent a week in January 2009 (from the 10th to the 16th) in South Texas. This trip was by myself and covered from Zapata to Brownsville looking for birds with some butterflies and dragonflies thrown in. I had originally planned on heading as far east as Laguna Atascosa and South Padre Island but ended [...]
Here’s a few notes about the trip (travel, car, hotel, food) and then complete lists of what I saw. Travel I flew on AirTran from Boston to San Antonio. Although San Antonio was a bit of a drive, round-trip was about $250 and Mission and other nearby airports were all well over $500. I also [...]
Thursday, January 15 Today was the last morning of birding before I headed back to San Antonio. As I planned yesterday, I started by heading to Anzalduas. Or at least attempting to. I turned down the marked road and shortly found a giant dirt levee. Figuring that was wrong, I backtracked a bit and continued [...]
Wednesday, January 14 Today started with the weekly bird walk at Estero Llano Grande. I joined the walk as it heads into restricted areas of the park, which is where all the rarities have been seen. We ended up missing all of those, but it was well worth it anyway. The deck by the visitor’s [...]
Tuesday, January 13 As I noted in yesterday’s post, I scaled back today and headed to Resaca de la Palma. This is a brand new state park (open about 5 weeks) that has been getting good reviews. On the way over, I had noticed a birding trail sign right by the hotel, so I took [...]
Monday, January 12 Today I planned on spending the morning at Santa Ana NWR and then heading over to Bentsen for the afternoon butterfly walk. That proved to be a good plan. I reached Santa Ana at 8 and checked in at the visitor center. I was going to pay cash, but when I mentioned [...]
Sunday, January 11 I woke up about 7, confirmed that I still couldn’t figure out how to access the hotel wireless and also that the shower didn’t appear to be working (although I think I got this figured out by the next hotel). I took a look out the window and noticed a bunch of [...]
Saturday, January 10 Day 0 was a travel day, flying from Boston to San Antonio with a stop in Atlanta and then driving south to Zapata. Up at 6, off to the airport by 6:30. A crow, some gulls, and a red-tail along the way. Got dropped off, walked in, checked my bag and cleared [...]