At first, I was going to go on a long rant on what I think about the new WordPress comments administration page, then I decided not to end our truly enjoyable migration on a sour note. The current schedule has us leaving the great state of Texas sometime tomorrow depending on how close we adhere – we are retired, schedule, smedules. For those keeping score out there, this means I am likely at the high-water mark on the top 100 Texas birders list. The last regen of the list puts me at #12 with 223 species (and 3 exotic escapees). My new friend Tim H. sits on top with his 300 tallies as he undertakes his Texas Big Year endeavor – he is off to a great start! Actually, what I am really proud of is I broke into the top 100 birders in all of US at #99. Both of these standings will start dropping quickly with our return home, but I can bask in the glory for another day ha. Oh, and it feels good to know I am only 77 species from my Average Year goal (link here).
Keeping with the celebration theme, going with a rather festive featured feathered friend.
Hit the jump to read about this surprise desert visitor.
First off, let’s welcome Brad and Jan who are now safely back from assignment across the pond. Can’t wait to read about all their finds in future posts.
As for us, we are officially out of the Rio Grande Valley now and technically on the homeward phase of our southern migration. Currently outside San Antonio at one of my favorite parks in Texas, Guadalupe River State Park. Unfortunately, it is rainy and cold but far “birdier” than expected – added 11 birds for the year here so far, which officially puts me over 200 species for this year’s Average Year. (link here). Right on par with my 2023 high water mark and well above last year’s 325 mark. Now 2/3rds of the way to the 300 goal and we haven’t even made it out of the first month. Best part is we continue to meet wonderful people from near and far. Before I forget, I need to apologize to the couple from Canada I met today as I accidentally gave them a bad ID. Somehow a Downy Woodpecker I was tracking in a nearby tree secretly swapped in a Ladderback WP when I was distracted. Just noticed the error when I was reviewing my shots – Downy, Downy, hot mess of twigs, Downy, crappy shot of a tree trunk, Downy, Downy, Ladderback WTH hehehe. Sorry about that. Ironically, the Merlin Photo ID functionality I was showing you at the time was correct (to the rest of the fine people conversed with on today’s hike, no other errors were discovered ha).
While I catch up on the techy birding paperwork and start drawing up this year’s stretch goals for the staff, going to turn you over to Brad to update you with another assignment from across the pond.
Take it away Brad…
No, this isn’t about dentists, so you can all relax — this won’t hurt a bit.
Jan and I had the recent fortune of being able to visit with her English relatives in, where else, England. The extended family (Jan’s cousin Louise and her husband Steve, Louise’s mum Margaret and dad John, the pups Finn and Red, and Jan and I) decided to take an October holiday. We stayed in a thatched roof cottage in Dorset near the English Channel. During one of the “warmer” days (upper 40’s Fahrenheit) most of us took a trip seaside (John elected to stay warm in the cottage). In October you ask? Yes, why not.
All of us enjoyed the trip through the English countryside (via the C-roads) to Lyme Regis on the coast of the English Channel. For those unfamiliar with C-roads across the pond, think of a very narrow single-lane road lined with tall hedge sprouting from the edge of the pavement. I forgot to mention, there is still two-way traffic on a C-road. Steve was driving, thankfully, (not quite sure they trust my driving on the other side of the road yet after the sunroof incident) and secured one of the eight parking spaces near the beach. Once Steve paid the small fee to park the car (I didn’t have any of the English parking apps on my phone), we started a stroll along the beach. Remember, this is taking place in October in England. That means the words “beach” and “shivering “will most likely appear in the same sentence.
Lyme Regis is known for many things, but the most recent famous fact anyone can recall is Mary Anning’s discovery of the first plesiosaur skeleton in 1823. At the time, women simply didn’t do archeology (Jurassic thinking, by the way) so her work was largely dismissed by the establishment. Oh sure, the establishment took the credit. However, none of the credit made it to Mary until after her passing. She also discovered the first known pterosaur (later to be called a pterodactyl) outside of Germany. Mary pioneered the study of coprolites (fossilized poo). Sort of poetic with the times she lived in, don’t you think?
The area around Lyme Regis has become known as the Jurassic Coast.
Mother Nature has decided I need a break from birding and has turned off the heater down here in south Texas. It has been 20 days of intense birding since the calendar turned and now officially at 179+2 provisionals. That puts me on par with our best Average Year back in 2023 (link here) and significantly ahead of our 2024 productivity (link here) – swapping the Texas and Arizona trips really hurt our numbers last year. Needless to say, plenty of new blog fodder this young year to take us well into 2027. In the midst of all the tin filling I completely forgot to announce the official start of our 18th year here at Intrigued. For all the staff, we’ll officially celebrate once everyone gets back from the field. Note, Brad and Jan are due back to the mainland soon, so get the place tidied up and stoke up the furnace.
Speaking of Brad and Jan, they actually beat me to today’s featured feathered friend.
Hit the jump if you are “Wren” for it! (the puns will continue until you beg for mercy ha)
Apologies for being a bit out of pocket as of late. All our field staff including me are ..well..out in the field. Among them, Brad and Jan are filling up their tins abroad and Linda and I are dealing with the wet and cold weather currently ravaging south Texas. Surprisingly, the birding has been pretty impressive given the conditions. My brother Ron flew down to join in some birding for a week and just got on the plane to return to Chicago where it is snowing with a windchill of -4 – okay, I’ll stop complaining about our weather. In Ron’s short time here we were able to find him just under 150 new birds for his Average Year tally. That puts him at roughly 100 in the top 100 eBirders by species for the Texas region (note, actual positioning can fluctuate during the day based on reporting). Pretty impressive, but not to be outdone, with my extended time in Texas I am officially at 165 bird species. That puts me around 48th place for the entire Texas region. That is 52 birds ahead of last year’s pace, which you will recall, ended with a tally of 325 (see the finally updated full 2024 stats here). Shockingly, that means in the 15 days so far this year I already have 55% of the annual goal of 300. Tells you how hard it gets to find new birds as the year progresses. I do want to give a shoutout to all the wonderful birders we have met down here, including Steve and Lisa who guided us through Santa Ana NWR yesterday. Always willing to strike up a conversation and assist with any sightings. Warms my heart to know the birding community bonds continue to be strong.
I suspect there are some out there that could have predicted today’s featured feathered friend. After the last post on the Phainopepla, it just seems appropriate to go with another incredibly hard bird to spell that also has a spectacular punk-do.
Hit the jump to read more about this chunky member of the Cardinalidae family
Okay, going to say firmly and for the record to our Texas friends…we are NOT responsible for the frigid temps that have made its way down here this week. Purely coincidental that we happened to have arrived around the same time of the cold snap. We are definitely not used to layering this much in the south and Linda actually had gloves on today while visiting Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville. So cold the Monkeys were considering cuddling up with the Lions. Fortunately, the birding has been living up to our high expectations. Currently at 112 species fresh into the new year. I am behind my 2024 Average Year stats (link here), but did manage to get the 2025 page created and updated (link here). For the curious, I ended last year at 325 checks thanks to a late surge in December. Currently sitting 35 species ahead of that pace, but 19 behind 2023. Many birds still left to tin down here and plenty of time to get that done – sitting pretty, enjoying the pretty colors!
Apologies to those back home, we feel for you suffering through the snow and temps in the teens ..no, no, we really do! (Brad, can you make sure the maintenance crew puts extra salt on our Intrigued HQ walkways).
Enough chit chat, time to get to work and present today’s featured feathered friend.
Hit the jump to learn more about our “black robed” friend.
Welcome to 2025 everybody!! Admittedly, I am now officially 0 for 2 in actually getting the date right, but don’t worry, the year is still young…there will be plenty more mistakes ha. The Intrigued holiday break is officially past and those not already assigned to the field are back in the office, stoking the fireplaces, cleaning up after the raucous year end party and based on the last weather report, shoveling the parking lot and salting the walkways. Fortunately, Linda and I are getting ready to enjoy the sun-soaked days of South Padre Island. Birding has been excellent so far including some very successful chases to pad the 2024 Average Year (not updated, link here) and getting the 2025 version off to a great start. Best of all, we have met some extremely kind and helpful birders on our trip down here! A big thank you and shoutout to Tim, Q, Tom, Tonya and Arthur – best of luck on your 2025 birding goals. While I dig out the sunscreen and finish up all the 2024 paperwork (hope I didn’t leave all those staff expense reports in the fireplace, wink), Brad is going to bring you a few finds from Sin City.
Take it away Brad…
As Brian has stated many times over the years, he has quite a backlog of photos to process and write stories about. I’m nowhere near his backlog levels. Even if I am, it’s only because of the grueling travel schedule Intrigued HQ has Jan and I on this year. Looking back through the queue of stories, I found this one that I had started, but had “misplaced” and not taken the time to finish. This story is from our trip to Las Vegas during September 2023.
In the afterglow of seeing a Desert Tortoise (see here) in Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas, Jan and I decided to drive to the Willow Springs Picnic area to see the Petroglyph Wall.
We arrived at the park late in the day, after 4:30pm. Shadows were long in the canyon. We weren’t hopeful of seeing many desert birds. The shadows also helped reduce the desert temperature to a comfortable range while standing outside of the air-conditioned rental car. Early Fall can be quite warm in the desert. Forget about that “dry heat” nonsense, hot is hot. While we did see a few musings carved in the stone at the Petroglyph Wall, that wasn’t the really interesting part.
As Jan and I walked further up the trails and into the shadows in the canyon, we were cranking up the ISO as we went. Our cameras (replaced with the next model since writing this story, they did each have over 200K clicks on them) were most effective up to about ISO 3200, but past that it’s really an iffy proposition to get publishable photos. As it was, I thought I was stretching the cameras to the max with high ISO, aperture as wide as the lens would allow and a slower shutter speed than I would like to be using. Nikon’s Vibration Reduction (VR) helped a bit, but not nearly enough to keep the other settings low enough to catch spastic little birds in the scrub brush.
Sure enough, there were two little birds teasing us mercilessly. These LBJ’s lived there and probably knew our cameras were being taxed. Both of them were within feet of the ever-darkening trail. Each would flit to the outside of their respective bush/shrub, pause for about 1/250th of a second, and then bury themselves in the dark interiors again.
Hit the jump to read more about these very active finds.
Life Intrigued 