Sandhill Cranes
Plain Chachalaca
Redhead
Roseate Spoonbill
Sanderlings
Skimmer
Snowy Egret
Tricolored Heron
Vermillion Flycatcher
White Ibis
White Ibis Juvenile
White Ibis, Reg Egret, and Little Blue Heron
Whooping Crane
Whooping Crane take-off
Whooping Crane with Blue Crab
Willets
Wilson's Snipe
Yellowlegs
Yellowlegs
For a good description of the Road Scholar (Elderhostel) trip in Brownsville, see this post by Jeanne Heuer.
Harris Hawk
Killdeer
Ladder-backed Woodpecker
Laughing Gull
Laughing Gulls
Laughing Gulls beginning to get red beaks as part of their breeding plummage
Lesser Scaup
Little Blue Heron
Loggerhead Shrike
Long-billed Curlew
Long-billed Curlew with Crab
Long-billed Thrasher
Merlin
Mottled Duck
Mottled Ducks and Mallard
Northern Cardinal
Northern Shoveler
Olive Sparrow
I recently spent two weeks birding in the Corpus Christi and Brownsville areas, where I logged around 120 species. Here are some of my best pictures.
Altamira Oriole
American Kestrel
American Pipit
American Wigeon and Black-necked Stilts
Anhinga
Black-bellied Whistling Ducks
Blue-winged Teal
Brown Pelican
Cattle Egret
Cinnamon Teal
Common Moorhen
Couch's Kingbird
Crested Caracara
Curve-billed Thrasher
Double-crested & Neotropical Cormorants
Double-crested Cormorant
Eastern Meadowlark
Eastern Meadowlark 2
Eastern Phoebe
Fulvous Whistling Duck
Great & Snowy Egrets
Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron 2
Greater Kiskadee
Great-tailed Grackle
Green Jay
Green-winged Teal
More to come–
Every day we went searching for birds at 6:30 a.m. for an hour before breakfast, for about 3 hours after breakfast, and then for a couple of hours in the late afternoon. In the two full days and two half-days on the island I logged 70 species, making several additions to my life list. Seth’s list was closer to 100.
We hiked most of the trails on the island except for those to Green Point on the very northern tip of the island. We walked through the Cathedral Woods where there are many fairy houses along the trail.
Fairy House in Cathedral Woods
We hiked along the shoreline,
Monhegan Harbor from near Fish Beach
and up on the bluffs that reached a maximum of 160 feet above sea level.
White Head
Gull Rock
We found birds on the rocks being beaten by the waves
Great Cormorants
and on the placid Ice Pond in the village just below the school.
Ice Pond
Mallard on the Ice Pond
In what resembled an overgrown drainage ditch alongside the swampy meadow which is the source of the villagers’ water
Village Meadow
a sora lurked the entire time we were there. With patience one could get a glimpse of this very reclusive bird.
I took many pictures in an attempt to capture the fury of the waves and sea, but without sound, you’ll have to use your imagination.
Waves about to break on the rocks
Crash!
On a dreary, overcast day in late September the 65-foot Elizabeth Anndeparted Port Clyde for the ten-mile trip to Monhegan Island carrying a group of 17 Road Scholar birders and their two guides–Seth Benz and George Kleuber.
Elizabeth Ann in Port Clyde
The wind was blowing (note the flag), and the seas were rolling. Many of us huddled on the upper deck hoping the fresh air would keep our stomachs under control during the one-hour ride to the island.
Double-crested Cormorants and a Great Black-backed Gull
This 1.75 mile by .6 mile piece of isolated rock at the entrance to Penobscot Bay had been noted in the journals of Samuel de Champlain (1604) and John Smith (1614).
John Smith plaque on Monhegan Island
English traders and fishermen began using the island soon thereafter, but there were never many year-round, long-term residents until 1807 when Henry Trefethren and his two sons-in-law Josiah Starling and Thomas Horn bought the island for 300 pounds.
Sketch map of Monhegan Island
As of the 2000 census, the island had a resident population of 75, living in 46 households with 21 families. The island’s population swells in the summer with both tourists and summer people who own many of the 177 housing units on the island.
Monhegan Island shrouded in fog
Arriving at Monhegan Island
Some of the houses are available for rent–if you qualify.
House for Rent Weekly--No Water Wasters!
Most of the houses are relatively modest, especially in comparison to the “cottages” of the gilded age at resorts like Bar Harbor or Campobello Island.
Summer home on Monhegan
A modest cottage on Monhegan
Even the homes of the rich and famous are fairly modest here.
Wyeth home on Monhegan
There are a handful of “hotel” accommodations including the classy Island Inn,
Island Inn is in the background
the very modest Monhegan House,
Monhegan House
and the Trailing Yew where we stayed. The main building shown below was built in 1850; over the years 10 other assorted buildings were added to the complex. Some of the rooms at the Trailing Yew have no electricity, but most of our group were housed in an annex with electricity and a shared bathroom for each floor which had 4-5 rooms. The hostess rang a bell on the lawn to summon everyone to breakfast and dinner. The food was generally very good, although I got a little tired of baked haddock with some rather blah flavored butters.
Trailing Yew
Trailing Yew's Office
To be continued–
With my new 14mp Canon SX210 IS in tow, I spent three days birding on Monhegan Island with a Road Scholar group, followed by three more weeks of Road Scholar hiking in Acadia and Eastport. I bought this camera because I was impressed with the puffin pictures posted by a friend of a friend on facebook. It’s just a small, fit-in-your-pocket, but it has a 14x optical zoom.
Here are my best shots, most of which have been cropped and compressed to show details of the birds and meet WordPress size limits.
Bald Eagle--immature
Bald Eagle--mature
Clay colored Sparrow
Common Eider--Males
Dickcissel and White-crowned Sparrow
Great Black-backed Gull
Great Blue Heron
Herring Gull-Immature
Mallard--Male
Mallards--Female
Mallards near Witch Hole Acadia
Merlin
Ring-necked Pheasant
Ring necked Pheasant
Spruce Grouse
White-throated Sparrow
Taking pictures of birds from the back of an elephant isn’t easy, so here are a few of my not-so-great snaps doctored to the best of my ability to make them recognizable as birds.
Indian Pond Heron
Asian Openbill
Asian Openbill
Asian Openbill and ??
I cannot identify the set of three birds in the lower part of the above picture, but here are some more.
I could put together a gallery of photos from the internet of the many birds I saw, but why bother when someone else has a great gallery. I didn’t see all of these, but I saw a great many.
At the Temple Tiger dock
One morning we also went out on one of these boats looking for wildlife. Unlike the Manu in Peru, we didn’t see very much.
Great Egret
Great Egret in flight
An elephant after his bath
Crocodile
A tree in bloom
I assumed that the banks were part of the park and, therefore, off limits for habitation, but there were a few “residences” on some sand bars.
"Homes" in the sand
I think this man was cooking something
In some places, the banks were quite steep.
Sandy banks of the Narayani
The locals all used a type of narrow dugout canoe.
Dugout canoes used on the Narayani near Chitwan NP
The river seemed shallow enough that poles were used more than oars
On the Narayani early in the morning
No more mountain sunrises, just a busy, dead end street. It’s literally the end of the road. Goods headed for the guesthouses and homes up in the mountains, including all the propane needed to cook and boil water, must be transferred to mules or porters.
Birethanti at 6:30 in the morning
I could not figure out what this woman was doing on her roof at 6:30 in the morning.
A woman working on her roof
It was a short 1/2 hour walk, including one last suspension bridge, to the main road where our taxi driver was waiting.
One last bridge
As we neared Pokhara after about 1 1/2 hours, we stopped at a Tibetan refugee camp.
Tibetan Buddhist temple near Pokhara
Tibetan woman spinning
By 10 a.m., I was settling into my hotel room at the Four Seasons in Pokhara. I spent the day shopping, eating a hamburger and French fries in the garden at the Boomerang with Monica and Cash (my new friends from the Netherlands), and just relaxing.
Street sweeping in Pokhara; my back hurts just looking at him
Where do you keep your cow?
Hanging succulent
Brahminy starlings near my hotel balcony
My trek in the Himalayas was over, but I was not yet done with the mountains. A flight-seeing trip to Everest was still on my agenda after returning to Kathmandu.
The trek was neither as long or as hard as the John Muir Trail (three weeks in the California Sierras), nor was the food nearly as good. And those steps–give me a switchback any day. This was an entirely different kind of trek. It involved walking between villages and among fields with overnights in rustic guesthouses rather than camping in the wilderness. It was much more a cultural experience rather than an outdoors experience.
BUT, the Himalayas are the tallest (and youngest and largest) mountains on earth. If you’re a mountain lover, you have to go.
The Modi Khola valley leads to the Annapurna Sanctuary
The mountains tower over you
The sun rises really late
When you reach the Sanctuary at 13,000′, Annapurna at over 26,000′ still looms over you.
In the Sanctuary
Mt. Whitney at 14,500′ doesn’t compare.
Mt. Whitney from the desert floor
With Pelden’s help we identified over 50 of the many more different species we saw. Among those we saw two endangered species–the black-necked crane and the white-bellied heron. With my little camera I only managed to capture a handful, and those aren’t great photos. So here are a few more from the web.
Rufous vented Tit
Green-backed Tit
Rufous winged Fulvetta
Snow Pigeon
Yellow-billed Blue Magpie
Yellow-bellied Fantail
White-collared Blackbird
Spotted Nutcracker
Russet Sparrow