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If I have learned anything from living in the northern half of the United States is that in order to survive winter with my sanity in tact is that I need to eat a lot of kale, take a daily 20 minute walk (no matter how cold) and plan a trip some place warm even [...]

We birders birders on the eastern half of the continent are quite familiar with the ubiquitous Northern Parula, whose buzzy song is often one of the very first new birders learn because of its pervasiveness at nearly every spot in the east from mid-April on.  Before the callous lumping of all those warblers into the [...]

We birders north of Mexico used to have a parrot to call our own, a sun-faced, spike tailed jewel called the Carolina Parakeet that traversed the southeastern United States preceded by the adrenaline inducing ear piercing squeals that haunt the fever dreams of any birder lucky enough to have made the journey to the Neotropics.  [...]

On the first day of the Great Texas Birding Classic, the Swarovski Roadside Hawks racked up over 180 species on the Upper Coast. But one day does not a Big Week make. The team decided on an ambitious strategy that placed us in the Upper Rio Grande Valley before sunrise so we drove through the night, [...]

I am so excited about the announcement of Ted C. MacRae‘s new beetle-based blog carnival,  An Inordinate Fondness that I delved into the vault for a special post for its inaugural issue on February 10. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you… DUNG BEETLES! Yes, only the best beetles know their way around a dollop of dung. Texas’ [...]

I never got around to finishing up my Rio Grande Valley trip report, which is a crime because this last installment is packed with action. Imagine that after a delirious few days in the Rio Grande Valley, your trip was almost at an end. If you were me, this is how your final frenetic day [...]

You might think that after everything I’ve already written about my remarkable Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival 2008 experience that I’d be done by now. Far from it. If you’re lucky, I’m about halfway through the tale! Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park, with its anis, orioles, and fancy South Texas species, was mighty fine but [...]

Did you know that Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park is considered the crown jewel of Rio Grande Valley parks?  That’s what the press flaks at the World Birding Center say, and frankly, after visiting Bentsen, I’m not inclined to argue.  760 acres of Rio Grande floodplain forest and resaca woodland serve up some serious Valley [...]

My first day of birding at the 2008 Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival was pretty stupendous. Would the second day hold up? Considering that we were headed to the celebrated King Ranch, the Lone Star State’s largest ranch in Texas and a haven for birds for over a century, all signs pointed to yes. After [...]

Now that I’ve set the table by offering a glimpse into both the kinds of birds and kinds of birders one might see at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, let’s talk about trips. One of the main reasons the southernmost stretch of Texas is so essential to U.S. birders is that this is the [...]

Now that I’ve shared a glimpse into just how special the birds of the Rio Grande Valley are, I feel compelled to mention the people. This is probably because I fell in with such spectacular individuals. After all, a birding festival is as much about birders as it is about birds, and the Rio Grande [...]

I just flew in from the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Harlingen, TX and boy, are my arms tired. Actually, every bit of me is bone weary but it was worth it. The birding at this festival was epic, which is a term I don’t use lightly. This was due in no small part [...]

One of the most spectacular, important, and envy-inducing birding festivals in North America happens to be the one situated along the Mexican border in South Texas. The Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Harlingen, TX is the real deal, a birding festival by birders for birders with truly breath-taking birds. If you’ve ever dreamed of [...]