Rarest St. Paul Island bird

When we were up in Alaska, we flew out to St. Paul Island for a few days.  Although we saw quite a few birds that might qualify as rarities.... like RED-NECKED STINT:

 ... or WOOD SANDPIPER:

... or EYEBROWED THRUSH:

... the rarest species, for the island, was this simple and familiar dabbler, BLUE-WINGED TEAL:

You see, this was the first record of this species for the entire Bering Sea region.  It's all relative.

Road wanderer

My last post shared some scenery from Denali. 

Meanwhile, along the roads, it wasn't uncommon to see this feather-footed species... the WILLOW PTARMIGAN:

Denali

Although I still have thousands of images to sort through, edit, and upload, here are six non-bird photos from Denali on my recent Field Guides Alaska tour.  Enjoy.

Grebes

Another highlight from the New Mexico tour was the chance to study grebes at close range.  Here's a WESTERN GREBE followed by the similar CLARK'S GREBE:

Stepping down

Back in January, we led a new tour to New Mexico.  One of the many things we enjoyed on tour was the show of geese and cranes at Bosque del Apache NWR.  Here's a photo of some SANDHILL CRANES coming in to roost at dusk:

Una Semana En Texas

I spent a week in Texas earlier this year.  Not on tour, just chasing a few birds, photographing a lot of things, and getting reacquainted with all the cool stuff the Rio Grande Valley has to offer.

Here are a bunch of shots.

Fork-tailed Flycatcher near Dallas:

Great Kiskadee:

Golden-crowned Warbler:

Bronzed Cowbird:

Green Parakeet:

Ok, LOTS of Green Parakeets:

Spotted Sandpiper on the banks of the Rio Grande:

Altamira Oriole:

Green Jay:

Morelet's Seedeater in the Zapata library pond veg:

Plain Chachalaca:

Red-bordered Pixie:

Eastern Screech-Owl:

Plain Chachalaca:

Yep, more Plain Chachalaca:

White-tipped Dove:

Altamira Oriole:

Olive Sparrow:

Green Jay:

A young White-tailed Hawk:

Burrowing Owl:

Red-crowned Parrot:

Green Kingfisher:

Common Pauraque:

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck:

Tropical Kingbird:

Rock Pigeon being weird:

Tricolored Heron:

Yellow-crowned Night-Heron also being weird:

Orange-crowned Warbler:

The Rio Grande with Mexico in the background:

Hook-billed Kite:

A big tree, THE Big Tree near Goose Island.  It's a Live Oak that's 1000+ years old:

Holiday in Costa Rica

This past Christmas I helped lead a Field Guides tour to Costa Rica.  Needless to say, it was a wonderful escape from the northern winter!  It certainly was a successful tour and we ended up netting 320+ species in less than a week!  We stayed at Rancho Naturalista for all of our nights away from San Jose which made for a relaxing and gorgeous home base.

Here are just a few photos from the slew I came back with.

Black-billed Nightingale-Thrush:

Crowned Woodnymph:

Snowcap:

Stripe-throated Hermit:

Green-breasted Mango:

Black-and-gold Tanager:

Tawny-chested Flycatcher:

Red-throated Ant-Tanager:

Mottled Owl:

Tropical Screech-Owl:

Ornate Hawk-Eagle:

Sooty Thrush:

Slaty Flowerpiercer:

Green Thorntail:

Sunbittern:

Spotted Barbtail:

Black-faced Solitaire: