Southwest Trip Wrap-up

Now that we’ve been home a few weeks and are seeing spring birds in Vermont, it’s interesting to think back about some of the neat birds we saw this winter.  I saw about 210 species with 25 new to me.  There were no extremely rare ones this year like in the past although the Brown Jay was one that hadn’t shown up for a few years.  Here are some of the ones that I particularly liked — some of my photos are not wonderful but give a taste of what we saw.  Great birding all in all.

We saw large groups of Black-crowned Night Herons at Goose Island SP

Brown-headed Nuthatches at Lake Fountainbleau SP in LA

Black-capped Titmouse

Brown Jay at Salenino, TX

Curve-billed Thrasher singing at Falcon SP 
Golden-fronted Woodpecker

Laughing Gulls

Pine Warbler at Clarko SP, MS 
Roadrunners were less prevalent this year, perhaps because of the Texas drought.

One of my favorites and a life bird — Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Semi-palmated Plover

Roseate Spoonbill developing breeding plumage – Rockport, TX

Whooping Cranes.

Willets courting.