Life in Flight in the Rio Grande Valley
Green Jay / © Bryan Pfeiffer
HERE IN TEXAS, now an open-carry state, I’m packin’ a Canon 7D with a 180mm macro and a 100-400mm telephoto. And I’m shooting like crazy in the Rio Grande Valley, a “detour” on my way home to Vermont from New Mexico. I came here mostly for butterflies, which haven’t obliged much under clouds and rain. No matter. I enjoy whatever flies my way, including four friends from Vermont: Pat and Chris Pratt (Team Pipit) and Steve Norris and Sue Keefer, who took me butterflying when the sun emerged the other day.
Below is a tiny sampling of birds and butterflies we’ve been seeing. Note that lots of these butterflies are no bigger than your thumbnail. Think of the slide show as respite from the Arctic Oscillation or whatever now foments the icy retribution for our balmy December farther north.
Oh, by the way, if you yourself would like to see some of these birds and other glittering life in flight, my pal Chip Darmstadt of the North Branch Nature Center will be guiding a birding trip here in April. You should go. The Rio Grande is grand indeed. Contact Chip for details.
Great! Exactly where in the Rio Grande Valley are you? I heard the Roma Wildlife Center closed. It was very sweet, BUT …
I’m mostly from Weslaco to Mission — usual haunts around here: Estero, Santa Ana, Bentsen, Edinburg wetlands. Delightful!
Sounds like a lot of fun. Enjoying the sideshow.
Thanks, Randy. It would be wonderfully overwhelming with leps here in October.
Wow! Cool. ..got to love that Green Jay photo!
Thanks, Rollin. You gotta get here some day.
So nice to hear of your travels and wanderings and sightings. I lived, wild foraged and wild life watched in Southern Texas for many years and grew to love the extremes of that region, the incidental sighting of a snowy owl, the brown scorpion, the tarantula crossings, armadillo’s, copperheads and rattlesnakes. You can wild forage your way through it especially in the early spring. But Tread softly.
Oh, that’s right — forgot about your Texas past. Big state, TONS of development and farms, and some spectacular natural areas.