Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Deep in the Heart of

Texas! The whole nerd gang is in Texas this week - enjoying the Texas Hill Country and beyond. We rented a house in San Antonio. We have Hill Country to the north and flat cattle and oil fields to the south. Lori and I have a list of target birds to knock out on this trip. The 2 big ones are Golden-cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo which can only be seen in this area. Lori researched the accommodations and timing. I researched the birding locations and target list.

We headed north to a famous Texas State Park in Hill Country for our 2 targets. Lost Maples is on every birder's agenda. We left super early and drove for over an hour to get there by 7:30 AM. We were quite disappointed when the wind started to howl and rain started to fall.. The place was deserted - no rangers, no other birders, just us. We were under dressed and had no idea where to go for the birds. Luckily, we found a bird blind to give us some relief from the wind and rain while still allowing us to see some birds.

Bird Nerds in Bird Blind - Lost Maples
Eventually, we had to venture out of the blind to go after our target birds. Here is Di freezing her ass off.

Diane - Lost Maples
Luckily, I brought a rain coat - or what I thought was a rain coat. It turned out to be a poncho which proved difficult for binocular or camera use but at least I didn't get wet.

Ponch Linda - Lost Maples
The rain passed quickly but the wind and cold stayed. We hiked up the trail in search of Golden-cheeked Warbler. We were not disappointed. We heard 2 of them singing and then we saw one! Wow. I know it doesn't look like "wow" in these photos but considering the crappy photographing conditions, these are not bad.

Golden-cheeked Warbler

Golden-cheeked Warbler
I'm not spoiling the surprise by telling you that better photos are coming but I am being rushed out the door now to go horseback riding. I am not getting on a horse, the other girls are going. Connie and I are going shopping. More to come. . .


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is that Lost Maples OR Lost MARBLES? Just askin'.
HH

Linda said...

Ha! Lost Marbles is probably closer to the truth