Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park

Bentsen was the last big destination for me along the Rio Grande. There was a walk at 8:00 and fortunately I left with time to spare as I got totally lost trying to find it. I didn't trust the directions on the iPhone and drove around for 30 minutes until I finally asked someone who pointed me to a road I had been on 20 minutes earlier where the iPhone HAD indicated, but it was a non-paved, totally pot-holed road leading to Deliverance country... but which turned out to be the road I needed: "It gets a little bumpy...just keep going and it will take you right to the park..." Another guy was there also and they talked back and forth in Spanish trying to make clear exactly where I needed to turn as I wanted very specific directions, so he walked me to the edge of the road and pointed at the nearby turn-off and I realized it was the Deliverance road after all.

I got there at 7:55 and off we went. The group leaders (Carol and Tom) were another retired couple from Appleton, Wisconsin. They had sold everything, including their home, and had been "full-time RVers" for three years, traveling and volunteering at NWRs and organizing birding trips to Costa Rica very other year. I guessed they were in their early 60s. Carol talked and Tom carried the scope. There were a dozen people in our group. We started out, crossed a canal and someone called out "Green Kingfisher" which I saw, but only as it flew down the canal and disappeared into the brush, never to be seen again. I will count it but this was one of the few times the sighting wasn't optimal. Had I not been with those who knew, I would not have. After the walk ended, late morning when it was 85 degrees, I walked half a mile along the canal, hoping to flush or re-find the kingfisher, but didn't.

There was a handsome pair of Black Phoebes sitting on the bridge, looking quite similar to the Dark-eyed Juncos we have in Michigan and another life bird for me.

We walked a short distance to a feeding station, which I was beginning to realize was the place to "get" most of the birds. There were several Chachalacas, the gorgeous Green Jays, Kiskadees and a Long-billed Thrasher (LB) that skulked out briefly and then disappeared into the brush. This bird is very similar to the Brown Thrasher common in Michigan but has an orange eye.

For the next couple of hours we would get on and off a tram which travelled a continuous loop through the park. We would wander around specific venues that Carol and Tom determined, and then get back on the next time it came through and travel to the next spot. I only learned a couple of the trees as birding was my priority, but
two that I remember were Huisache with a profusion of small fuzzy round yellow balls covering the tree looking like those little things that some women wear on the back of anklet socks. The other was the Ebony tree....The park is one of the few protected riparian habitats along the Rio Grande, always a contrast to the developed landscape elsewhere as is true of all our national, state and county green spaces.

Thoreau: "In wildness is the preservation of the world."

It was sunny, mild, breezy...One time, we were on an observation tower for 30 minutes looking into Mexico and not seeing much but a hawk flying overhead that had people scurrying to field guides and scopes and binocs, but the consensus was that no one was certain of the ID, weirdly gratifying as this happens so often to me. The guides several times mentioned the floods, particularly the recent one in 2010 when much of the park was under water, which is good for the natural order but not so good for tourism. Some flora and fauna change when this happens also. Part of why it flooded had to do with an upstream dam which released water, and the Ferruginous Pygmy Owls disappeared afterwards and havn't been seen at Bentsen since. Oxbows are called resacas down here.

I wondered aloud if anyone was in the park at night, as that would be quite an adventure, and was told that the Border Patrol certainly was, "on horseback and ATVs" most nights.

Again, it was a nice group, middle-aged or older, between 50 and 75 years old. I was surprised at how many couples there were. If one partner didn't like birdwatching, it would be a stretch to go on these outings, although an act of true love....

There were four to six rarities that have been seen in one or another of these venues lately; I didn't see any, but overheard a gentleman with a British accent brag how he got the "Golden-Cheeked Warbler at Frontera." It requries a willingness to spend more time than I had, or be very lucky. But the chance of seeing a Rose-throated Becard, Plain Jay or White-collared Seedeaters moves people to travel thousands of miles, spending thousands of dollars as in The Big Year.

Tom asked if anyone had seen/read this book and told us about Benton Basham who lives in Estero and "probably has the biggest North American life list of anyone...about 850 birds. He is an elderly gentleman now and also lives in Tennessee but if you go to Estero, back to the Tropical area, you will see an old trailer...he lives there. He says he has a huge indigo snake living under his trailer, but is always willing to talk to people." (Basham was mentioned in The Big Year.) It is worth googling "Benton Basham" and choosing the "peregrinenet.org" link to read a little about him.

Everything (including the birds) settle down during the heat of the day. It was time for me to continue up the Rio Grande Valley, heading west.