Texas Mission Accomplished

Mission accomplished. Our trip up to Edward’s Plateau has secured us nutbag-ripping views of both Black-capped Vireo and Golden-cheeked Warbler, and therefore our trip to Texas has been 100% successful. We’re currently staying at Neal’s Lodges which is somewhere near San Antonio, I think. Distances are so incredibly immense over here that I’m a bit baffled as to where we are.

My very happy wife having just found Golden-cheeked Warbler

We drove up from Laredo where we had a total disaster of a time trying to find White-collared Seedeaters at the Environmental Science Centre, mainly because some inconsiderate bastards have decided to construct an enormous fence continually patrolled by the border police, and the Seedeaters are now on the wrong side of the border wall. This was a long-time reliable site for them, but now you will have to risk being shot if you’re that keen on seeing them there, although presumably the US border police don’t mind if you go over the wall into Mexico? Just don’t try and come back over.

When we arrived at Neal’s Lodges, almost the very first bird I saw from our cabin was a Yellow-throated Warbler, a bird so stunning that I had to drive a nail into my forehead in order to believe that it was really so stunning. But just as we began to sift through the billions of Turkey Vultures in search of a Zone-tailed Hawk, a helicopter began to hover above our cabin, and then descended to just above tree level – this wasn’t great for birding. The helicopter then came close enough for me to read that it was the border police. Hmmm. Had they seen me snooping about the border wall in Laredo? Not quite, and things were about to get very exciting. You see, in Britain we believe that US law enforcement officers all wear ten gallon hats, have a handlebar moustache, wear a gold sheriff’s badge, carry a silver handgun and are surprisingly overweight to be employed in a job where presumably you have to run after criminals a lot. Well guess what – it’s all true! Unbelievable! But yes, this really did happen. As I tried to ignore the helicopter, an overweight sheriff with a gold star badge, handlebar moustache and ten gallon hat came running around the corner and shouted at me to stay where I was because he needed to speak to me. But this is the best bit – he was running around with a silver handgun. Come on! And guess what he said next? These were his exact words:

“Sir, have you seen a hispanic man wearing a green top come past here?”

What? Well, whilst we were working our way through Turkey Vultures in search of a Zone-tailed Hawk, the bank in Concan had been robbed by a “hispanic man in a green top”. This was about the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me, even more exciting than when the Ultimate Warrior came out to save Hulk Hogan in Wrestlemania VII – and as you’ll all no doubt remember, that was *very* exciting. Neal’s Lodges was then swamped with Five-0s, who had good reason to believe that the felon was hiding out amongst the hummingbird feeders. He hasn’t been apprehended yet.

Still, it hasn’t stopped us birding the trails here, and at the back of my mind I quite hope I’ll bump into him. It will be just like Great Expectations when Pip first meets Magwich on the meshes. This is exactly how it’s going to happen: I’ll be watching a Lazuli Bunting when suddenly the hispanic man in a green top will emerge from the bushes. We’ll become friends, and years from now when he’s made his fortune he’ll deposit vast sums of money into my bank account, and I’ll finally be able to afford that trip to Antarctica.

So here’s my advice: come to Neal’s Lodges, you’ll not be disappointed, it’s absolutely beautiful here and the birding is megamega. We’ve had tons and tons of great birds including Zone-tailed Hawk (the Turkey Vulture scouring paid off), Western Scrub-Jay, Verdin, Vermilion Flycatcher, Yellow-throated Warbler, Lark Bunting, Spotted Towhee… and today up at Kerr WMA we had brilliant views of the two ultimate Texan targets. Tomorrow we’ll hopefully get more great views of the Vireo and Warbler, and then it’s a looooooooooong drive east for Red-cockaded Woodpecker, where hopefully there’ll be another bank robbery.

Muscovy Duck at Salineno. Allegedly wild and entirely tickable - yeah right!

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Tagged as: black-capped vireo, edward's plateau, golden-cheeked warbler, Muscovy Duck, neal's lodges, Texas, tom mckinney