There was a saltmarsh with a boardwalk right by the convention center, which held Clapper Rails. I got a nice look at a Clapper Rail one day as it ate a crab, took a bath, and preened. There were many shorebirds in the bay during low tide, including Willets, Marbled Godwits, Dunlin, one American Avocet, and a Long-billed Curlew. There were also Reddish Egrets.
The conference coincided with the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, and I joined one of the festival field trips to King Ranch. Our first target was Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. We had 2 of them calling at once, though they stayed hidden in the brush. Finally somebody managed to spot one of the calling birds and we got several scopes set up. The owl sat there for a long time, allowing everyone to get good long looks at it through the scope. It was neat to see the false eye spots as it swivelled its head around. We saw many other good birds, including a Golden Eagle, rare in the valley. At our final stop we watched a family of Least Grebes, the parents occasionally feeding the cute little stripey chicks.
After the King Ranch trip I stopped by Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. The trails by headquarters were fairly quiet, it being mid-afternoon at that point. I saw a Winter Wren, and realized later when I entered it into eBird that this was an unusual sighting- they don't normally get that far south in the winter. I drove the 15-mile bayside loop, which held thousands of American Coots, a large group of Black-necked Stilts, many ducks, and a field full of Long-billed Curlews (plus one Whimbrel).
I spent the last day of the conference working on school work. After the last afternoon sessions, we left to camp at Bentsen Rio Grande State Park. We got there after dark, but got some good looks at Common Paraques (heard them too). The place was full of Eastern Screech-Owls, there were probably 4 or 5 within earshot of our tents.
The next day I joined a pelagic trip through the birding festival. It was overall a rough trip- winds and waves were high, making many (including me) seasick and soaked in the spray, and there were few birds to see. Hours would go by without a single sighting. The only true pelagic birds we saw were Pomarine and Parasitic Jaegers. However, we did get some great views of the former, including a beautiful adult that hovered just above the boat. We saw a number of Franklin's Gulls with the ubiquitous Laughing Gulls around the shrimp boats. Most surprising was a flyover Killdeer, out of sight of land. We saw tons of dolphins, mainly Bottlenose Dolphins along the coast and by the shrimp boats, but farther out we had a small group of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins leaping out of the water and keeping up with the boat.
126 species throughout the trip, including 2 lifers (Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl and Parasitic Jaeger):
Pied-billed Grebe
Least Grebe
American White Pelican
Brown Pelican
Magnificent Frigatebird
Double-crested Cormorant
Neotropic Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Reddish Egret
Little Blue Heron
Tricolored Heron
Cattle Egret
Black-crowned Night-Heron
White-faced Ibis
White Ibis
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
Mottled Duck
Gadwall
Northern Pintail
American Wigeon
Northern Shoveler
Blue-winged Teal
Redhead
Ring-necked Duck
Ruddy Duck
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
White-tailed Kite
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Northern Harrier
Harris's Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
White-tailed Hawk
Golden Eagle
Crested Caracara
American Kestrel
Merlin
Wild Turkey
Clapper Rail
Sora
Common Moorhen
American Coot
Sandhill Crane
Black-bellied Plover
Killdeer
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Willet
Marbled Godwit
Whimbrel
Long-billed Curlew
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Dunlin
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Short-billed Dowitcher
Wilson's Snipe
Pomarine Jaeger
Parasitic Jaeger
Laughing Gull
Franklin's Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Caspian Tern
Royal Tern
Sandwich Tern
Forster's Tern
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Common Ground-Dove
Eurasian Collared-Dove
White-tipped Dove
Barn Owl
Eastern Screech-Owl
Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl
Common Paraque
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Couch's Kingbird
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
Great Kiskadee
Loggerhead Shrike
White-eyed Vireo
Green Jay
Barn Swallow
Black-crested Titmouse
Marsh Wren
Sedge Wren
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Winter Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Northern Mockingbird
Long-billed Thrasher
American Pipit
Sprague's Pipit
European Starling
Orange-crowned Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Wilson's Warbler
Northern Cardinal
Pyrrhuloxia
Olive Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Lark Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Baltimore Oriole
Audubon's Oriole
Eastern Meadowlark
Red-winged Blackbird
Great-tailed Grackle
House Sparrow
