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: