Hi everyone! Kevin and myself spent a couple of weeks last month photograph birds along the Gulf Coast of Texas and in the Rio Grande Valley area. We got forty Life Birds (birds we had never seen before) on this trip!! Two "finds" were really exciting, the Rose-throated Becard, and the Bare-throated Tiger Heron (found at the Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park). This was the first report of this Heron in the United States ever and we just happened to be there!
One of the places we went to was the Martin Refuge in Edinburg, Texas (thank you Terence Brashear for telling us about this place!). This refuge is a ranch owned by John and Audrey Martin that has eight blinds for photographing birds from. Some of these blinds are built into the ground so that you are photographing at eye level to the birds! The Bird Guide there, Patty Raney, is wonderful and teaches you not only about the birds in that region, but about the flora etc. on the ranch. She was wonderful. ). There can also be wildlife coming into view to photograph. While we were there, Javelinas (20 at a time!) came! We'd highly recommend a visit to this refuge (you need reservations, go to www.martinrefuge.com, if you are interested in learning more If interested, go to www.FlightOfNature.com and click on "New Photos" to see the following birds that were photographed during this trip: Altamira Oriole American Avocet American Coot Bare-throated Tiger Heron Belted Kingfisher Black-bellied Plover Black-chinned Hummingbird Black-crested Titmouse Black-necked Stilt Blue-winged Teal Brewer's Blackbird Buff-bellied Hummingbird Carolina Wren Clay-colored Robin Common Ground Dove Crested Caracara Curve-billed Thrasher Dunlin Eared Grebe Eastern Phoebe Eastern Towhee Eurasian Collared-Dove Forster's Tern Golden-fronted Woodpecker Great Blue Heron Great Kiskadee Greater White-fronted Goose Greater Yellowlegs Great-tailed Grackle Green Jay Green-winged Teal Harris's Hawk Hermit Thrush Herring Gull House Sparrow Inca Dove Indigo Bunting Javalina (this is not a bird! It can be viewed under "Wildlife") Ladder-backed Woodpecker Least Grebe Lesser Goldfinch Lincoln's Sparrow Loggerhead Shrike Long-billed Curlew Long-billed Dowitcher Marbled Godwit Mourning Dove Muscovy Myrtle Yellow-rumped Warbler Neotropic Cormorant Northern Cardinal Northern Mockingbird Northern Pintail Northern Shoveler Orange-crowned Warbler Pied-billed Grebe Plain Chachalaca Pyrrhuloxia Reddish Egret Redhead Red-tailed Hawk Roseate Spoonbill Rose-throated Becard Royal Tern Ruddy Turnstone Sanderling Snowy Plover Spotted Sandpiper White Ibis White-tipped Dove White-winged Dove Willet ENJOY! Linda and Kevin Krueger www.FlightOfNature.com ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
