Ummm, somebody has some explaining to do and I think that person is Mother Nature. Every winter since retirement, Linda and I pack up the RV, toss (gently) the boys in and drive all the way down to south Texas. What is the primary factor in that decision, pretty easy…WARMTH. We have lived our whole lives in the Midwest tundra and we’ve lost our interest in the bone jarring windchills and fluffy white stuff. We still get a taste of it when we return, but we can enjoy the relief while we can. Which brings me back to needing an explanation – it was 39 degrees today here in South Padre Island…let me say it louder for the cheap seats THIRTY-NINE. Granted it is 4 degrees currently at home, but I’m not there…I’m HERE. I am definitely not insinuating that our friends from home had anything to do with bringing these temperatures down with them when they came to visit us yesterday…that would just be cruel hehehehe. Anyway, the real concern down here isn’t us, that’s for sure, but our thoughts are on the Sea Turtles that are on the brink of a cold stun. We visited the Sea Turtle Rescue facility today and they were busy preparing for the worst. Best of luck to the 6 Green Sea Turtles we saw off the SPI jetty 2 days ago (link here).
I was looking through the photo queue to decide what to feature today when I came across this series of shots from last year’s trip down here.
Long time readers of the blog might recognize that log as I featured it many times in the past. It happens to be one of my favorite photography setting. Each visit I look forward to seeing what birds I’ll find perched there.
I have an update on this cherished spot after the jump.
The old adage is time flies for a busy person – and I’ll simply refine that a bit and state that it’s even faster when you are doing something you enjoy. Brad and I always joke that we are busier now than we were before we were retired…noting that the real difference is we aren’t tearing our hair out trying to find those evil spirits in the machine. That isn’t to say it is all stress free down here in south Texas. Some of the local birds prefer not to be seen, much less stare down the end of a large black barrel that goes clicky clicky (at least for us that haven’t made the leap to mirrorless). I am happy to report that after my rather slow start, things have really picked up as we make our way eastward from Big Bend National Park. The count sits at 200+2 which is better at this point than our previous “Average Year” attempts (link here). Ron was even able to make it down here last weekend to get his numbers jump started – he had to go back to zero degree (F) temperatures and that white fluffy stuff, ugh. We are currently at our 4th base camp which is on South Padre Island with the Mangrove Yellow Warbler on the menu. On two unsuccessful attempts so far, but plenty of days left to remedy that. Time to get to the real reason you are here, today’s featured feathered friend.
Based on the shot above, you might think that this is one of those birds mentioned earlier that prefers not to be seen – hit the jump and we’ll see if that is accurate.
Sorry for the lag in posts, the first of the year bird count reset means we are in a target rich environment, especially down here in south Texas. Sun up to sun down we are chasing birds and then by the time I get the spoils offloaded to the storage drives (and the secondary storage drives), make the eBird submissions, update Intrigued’s Average Year bird tracker and write up the day’s trip report I am absolutely exhausted. My brother Ron was also able to join us for a few days so I’m trying my best to get him caught up – yes, our brotherly “competition” transitions to “collaboration” when we are in the field together. My slow start is picking up steam as I’m now on firm ground in the Texas top 100 birders list and steadily climbing. Even bagged a premier rarity for the Rio Grande Valley today – a nice gift for my birthday (today). More to come on that success, but for now, if you are interested you can get up to speed on where we’ve been on our Average Year status page (note, I have not been able to get the charts updated yet) – link here. Best of all, I’ve been meeting a number of wonderful and extremely helpful birders this trip – our feather community never ceases to amaze me.
While I recover from my birthday celebration, going to put you in Brad’s capable hands to bring you another very special bird from their trip “Down Under”. Take care everybody, I’ll be back once things start settling down here.
Take it away Brad…
The title of this story should get your braincells remembering a song from childhood. That is, if you are over a certain age. I’m not admitting to anything at all, mind you.
Jan and I were on assignment down under. We had just completed a long day visiting Taronga Zoo in Sydney and traversing everything there is to see at Sydney Harbour. We spent a little while trying to find P. Sherman at 42 Wallaby Way (from Finding Nemo by Disney), but then decided it was probably time to find our hotel.
Sydney is a lovely city to visit. There’s a bit of nearly everything for any visitor. Sydney has tall buildings for the architecture lover. There are great restaurants liberally sprinkled through the downtown area. A few blocks away from the harbour is fantastic shopping, even some very high-end stores with queues forming outside an hour before the stores opened. Not to mention the Sydney Opera House (a life goal) and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, both right on the water. In my humble opinion, Intrigued readers really must visit Sydney. No, I’m not being compensated by their tourism council. And yes, I’m using Australian spellings where they differ with their American cousins for this story.
On the way back from the harbour area, Jan and I decided to walk through the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney. It was on the way to our hotel after all, and a great chance to look for birds. Within seconds of setting foot in the botanical garden, our first photo subject was prepped and ready to go for us. I was looking to the right side of the path at a Noisy Miner and Jan was looking to the left. She lifted her arm to point at a bird in the tree and asked, “What’s that?” Before I could turn to focus my attention, she had raised her camera and was firing away.
Not going to see one of these hanging out in one of our local trees, that’s for sure. Hit the jump to learn more about this kooky looking bird!
Hope everyone’s year is going smoothly so far. As for me, I am having my worst start to birding since we started the Average Year competition some 4 years ago (link here). The count sits at 86+2 provisionals which is not that impressive when you think of south Texas, but truth is, I have been able to pick up some key checks that would normally be reserved for our Arizona trip. Especially important for this year as we are replacing that annual spring trip with a run up to the Northwest for this year’s CPE Agility Nationals competition. As a bit of compensation, we went further west into Texas this year (Big Bend National Park). Now we are heading back to our more traditional Rio Grande Valley stomping grounds. While on my first run of the year today, I was thinking about what to feature for my first post of 2026…what do I follow a Koala Bear with…hmmm.. clearly nothing..were talking about a Koala folksha! I can’t get to that level of cuteness, but we can go with another first for Intrigue.
Yes, there are Sparrows out there we haven’t covered yet – hit the jump to learn more about this oddly colored member of the Passerellidae family .
Welcome to the New Year everyone! I am getting a late start mostly due to lack of consistent connectivity…that and the fact the birding counter reset to 0 a few days ago. If you are a birder, you know that the beginning of the year is the BEST time to bird as practically every thing you see with wings is a check! As for the connectivity, we are currently in Big Bend National Park and this place is HUGE. For a reference point, the road from one end of the park to the other is ~43 miles. The park itself is over 800,000 acres of which a large number of those produce a slashed circle on your cell phone bar. I’ll get more into this park in future posts, but right now (while I have a few bars of signal) I want to get you to something I kind of let out of the bag in our Christmas greeting. Brad and Jan had the opportunity to explore “Down Under” late last year and I wanted to start off 2026 with one of their observations.
You are in for a real treat, take it away Brad!…
Sometimes, photo assignments turn out to be vacations in disguise. Shhh, don’t tell Intrigued HQ; Jan and I sold this trip on being a four-week long photo adventure, promising to bring back thousands of photos. Well, we actually did bring back tens of thousands of photos. We also had a very nice vacation along the way in a spectacular part of the world. This trip/vacation/assignment ticked several life goal boxes: crossing the equator, crossing the International Date Line, crossing the Pacific Ocean, visiting a new continent, seeing the Indian Ocean, and seeing unique wildlife. You get the idea.
To maximize our coverage area and create the most photo opportunities, on our first full day down under we signed up for a guided tour leaving Melbourne early in the morning. After picking up the other tour participants, the guide and driver named Brian (at least it will be for this story), gave us an overview of the agenda for the day. Once everyone was onboard, and he thought most of the tour group was awake (the tour started before sunrise), he asked if there were any goals we had for the trip. Waiting a few seconds to see if anyone else suggested a goal, I blurted out mine for the day. No one else was really awake it seemed because there we no other suggestions. I realized later that of the nine people in the tour minibus, there were only four English speaking participants. Brian mentioned something about my goal being very nice, but that it had a very low likelihood of being achieved for reasons listed later.
Several hours into the tour, Brian had begun to warm up to the group and suggested we might be able to meet my stated goal after all. As we approached a small bridge over a stream in the middle of nowhere, literally, he slowed dramatically. Dozens of tourists had parked haphazardly on the road and were staring up into the trees. Brian said that when there are a bunch of people pointing up in a tree in the middle of nowhere it’s usually a sign of something high up in the trees. Impeccable logic.
He didn’t want to add to the dangerous parking situation so he continued driving across the small bridge to park at the first safe available place. The road was elevated above the surrounding fields by several feet allowing the creek/river to flow under the bridge with ease. As Brian opened the sliding door on our touring minibus, Jan hopped off first and spotted a brown lump in the tree in front of us at eye level.
How cute is that! – Hit the jump to read more about this adorable creature.
Wildlife Intrigued 