Texas Rio Grande Valley – Day 1

Dinner at the Blue Onion on Day 1 (all but 2 of our group) – photo by Greg Miller

Today was a busy day with me at the Wildside Nature Tours booth at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Harlingen and my two co-leaders Chris Brown & Gabriel Lugo picking up folks from the airport in McAllen. With waning daylight Gabriel found a few Green Parakeets across the road from our motel in Mission, TX.

All but two of our group met for dinner and returned back to the hotel for an early evening. Tomorrow will be a long day that will start very early. Yah. 5am early. Yah. The time we are going to leave. We’ll eat breakfast on the road as we head three hours north and west to Laredo, TX to chase the Amazon Kingfisher that has been seen there the past week. To my knowledge this is only the third record of this species in North America. I hope it is still there tomorrow and that we can find it! But that is always the thrill of bird chases. They have wings. And no one really knows how long a bird will stay or when it will leave.

I’m looking forward to some pretty good Mexican food from a Stripes food store (with Valero gas stations). It’s a Rio Grande Valley thing. Now off to bed. Even with the time change getting up at 4am is going to seem very early.