We got in here on Wednesday February 3 and we were booked through the 10th.  On Sunday we decided to stay on as the weather didn’t look any better anyplace west of here – or most anyplace in the country.  We extended to the 14th.  We will move out on Valentine Day regardless of the weather, unless we change our mind again.

We have been birding endlessly.  As I was sitting here writing a Black-crested Titmouse was foraging on the ground outside my window.  We have gone on a couple of organized bird walks with Wendy, a retired biologist who is a Texas Parks Volunteer offering three guided walks a week and working at the Roma Birding Center as well.  We went on a canoe trip on the Rio Grand with volunteers with the Fish and Wildlife Service, Merle and Lois, who are camped across the street from us.                                    Ringed Jay 

We also got out our bicycles and road around the park and eventually to Salineno where the DeWinds no longer feed the birds, but there is a new person keeping the birds and birders happy.  That is a great birding spot and it is wonderful that the Texas Ornithological Society has continued to maintain the feeding there.

On our first Saturday birding walk one of the men showed a picture he had taken of a hawk in the park.  A couple of very experienced birders identified it as a Roadside Hawk rarely seen north of the border (and here I thought roadside hawk was the generic name for any unidentified hawk seen along the road).  The uproar among birders within 200 miles has been phenomenal.  It took us six days, but yesterday we finally got to see the hawk.  Traffic in the park has been quite high, with people coming from Harlingen and Mission to see the hawk and stopping at Salineno as well.  The hawk is very cooperative.  We watched it sit on its roost for almost an hour as it left a couple of time to hunt and then returned. We were told it had been there for over four hours that day.  There are other rare bird sightings in the area as well, but we have contented ourselves with the hawk.  The others require us to get in the car and drive many miles and we are not yet that obsessive.

Thursday night was a potluck dinner followed by a gift exchange in advance of Valentine’s Day.  This turned out to be a lot of fun and laughs.  The idea was to bring a gift of something found or purchased for $5.  Each gift received a raffle ticket.  When your number was drawn you could choose a wrapped gift from the table or you could take a gift from someone else who had chosen before you.  The third “owner” of a gift is the final owner.  The laughs got more and more extended as the rounds of drawing proceeded and some people had three and four choices taken from them and they played up to the game.  Remember, nothing was really valuable and most of the “stuff” was going back into someone’s regifting pile.  Carol had her first choice plucked away, but got to keep an LED flashlight, as if we need another one.

For more pictures Click Here

We are indeed pulling out on Sunday – tomorrow as I write.  We have talked with Leora Zeitlin in Las Cruces and they will be around next weekend so we will take our time crossing the rest of Texas, depending on the route 750 to 800 miles and not less than 18 hours of driving.  We will take three days at least.