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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hamhed" data-source="post: 3159371" data-attributes="member: 70825">You have been warned - I have yet to learn the art of a concise trip report!  Get comfortable if you want to continue...Thursday 18thWith the idea of escaping December weather in the mountains of western North Carolina, combined with some south Texas birding, Liz and I flew to San Antonio a week before Christmas.  Our Delta flight was without incident (a good beginning).  Once in SAT, we rented a Hyundai Accent at the airport Alamo (<a href="https://www.alamo.com/en_US/car-rental/locations/location-details/US/SATT71-san-antonio-airport.html" target="_blank">https://www.alamo.com/en_US/car-rental/locations/location-details/US/SATT71-san-antonio-airport.html</a>) then we shopped at the HEB grocery and drove two and a half hours to Corpus Christi, staying at an Airbnb location (<a href="https://www.airbnb.com/?mr=f" target="_blank">https://www.airbnb.com/?mr=f</a>) just outside the city itself.Friday 19thWaking the next morning to a light rain, we drove to nearby Pollypog Pond for some early morning birding.  Surrounding by low woodlands and weedy fields, the pond held Least Grebes, Redhead Ducks (Liz’s first life bird for the trip), Buffleheads, a Vermilion Flycatcher, Green Kingfisher, Great Kiskadees, Ladder-backed Woodpecker and 14 others species.  Our birding lust satiated for the time being, we hit the road, heading further south where there was hopefully less wet weather.  Here is a link with pictures of the pond that we couldn’t take: <a href="http://www.city-data.com/forum/corpus-christi/619205-pollywog-pond-bird-wildlife-sanctuary-corpus.html" target="_blank">http://www.city-data.com/forum/corpus-christi/619205-pollywog-pond-bird-wildlife-sanctuary-corpus.html</a>A brief stop at a highway rest area produced  Brewer’s Sparrows, Black-crested Titmice and a Crested Caracara.  Two hours later, we turned east and spent some time in the cold, gray wind scoping the agricultural fields in the hope that wintering Mountain Plovers or Sprague’s Pipits would come into view.  There are miles of these perfectly flat fields, some recently plowed, some not, the borders of which are usually accessible by unpaved and often too-muddy-to-drive county roads.  A few dozen Horned Larks and Killdeer were by number most of what we saw.  Several Mourning Doves and one each Merlin (stirring up the ground birds), Harris Hawk and Red-tail Hawk.  Walking in the low grass was the occasional  Meadowlark, which could have been the Eastern or Western variety.  Several Kestrels, a Loggerhead Shrike and an Orange-crowned Warbler, all would be fairly common in the coming days.  With a few hours of daylight left and being not far from Atascosa National WIldlife Refuge (<a href="http://friendsoflagunaatascosanationalwildliferefuge.org/" target="_blank">http://friendsoflagunaatascosanationalwildliferefuge.org/</a>), we drove there, further east, through the backroads, passing a field with hundreds of Snow Geese and sighting various raptors, mainly Harris and Red-tailed Hawks, Crested Caracaras as well as several American Kestrels.  The entrance road to Atascosa had protected low forest on one side and open field on the other.  Driving slowly with eyes to the sky, we searched for Aplomado Falcons, once extirpated but recently accepted by the American Birding Association as a countable species when reintroduction efforts became successful.  More Snow Geese were seen, a pretty White-tailed Hawk and our second Crested Caracara also.  We spied an unfortunate Roadrunner, hopping on an injured leg.  For a bird who catches his prey by being an exceptionally speedy runner, that would likely be a mortal wound.  Around the Atascosa visitor center itself, we had a few songbirds such as White-eyed Vireo, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Black-crested Titmouse, a Kingbird (Tropical or Couch’s), two dozen flyover White Pelicans and our first of the trip Plain Chacalacas.  We spent the last hours of the afternoon in the thickets of the Kiskadee and Mesquite trails hunting the Tropical Parula had been reported there recently.  On to Harlingen, arriving after dark at another Airbnb location, just northwest of the crossroads of the interstate highways.  I had brought “A Birder’s Guide to the Rio Grande Valley”, the ABA guide to use as a location reference.  It is a 2008 publication; I think still the latest version.  The detail maps are very handy for planning; most birding sites we visited had their own maps in larger format.  For identification, I had the original Sibley’s Eastern Guide and Liz brought her National Geographic, which I believe is equal in caliber to the Sibley’s.  I considered raptor and sparrow i.d. books but because we were traveling with carry-on bags only, they had to stay in North Carolina.  In hindsight, I think we did okay on sparrows but too many of the raptors we saw were left unidentified.  We saw many while traveling.  In Texas, that means at least 70 mph if you are in the slow lane, trying not to be a nuisance to those who seemed to be thinking of the speed of light as just another a line on their speedometer.  The Lower Rio Grande Valley, (hereafter “LRGV”), is a fast-paced area.  So, unfortunately, the raptors often became a dark and forgettable blur.</blockquote>

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