Sunday 12 November 2017

Texas 17 - Day 3

Today didn't go as planned so it will be a truncated report.

A late eBird report of Red Crossbills in Van Horn Cemetery (granted on Monday) had me there at dawn. No luck but it woke me up.


The idea after breakfast was to return to the Guadalupe Mnts to visit the beautiful McKittrick Canyon. The approach road is spectacular...


I hadn't keyed in the Saturday factor plus the high demand to see the fall colour. Hence the car park was full and we were refused entry by the park rangers!

Disappointing. Must have used up my luck yesterday. No complaints and very happy with my tally. We'll just have to return another time.

We returned the 60 miles to Van Horn for plan B. Trouble is I didn't really have one due to the distances involved. We had lunch in the park and I birded while Louise read. A Cooper's Hawk was my only bird of note. Gambel's Quail had been reported on eBird which would have been great...but it wasn't to be. It was 80 plus now so we headed back to the Mountains on 54 some 15 miles were I scanned for a Golden Eagle for the rest of the afternoon. Again no joy but I added a smart Black-throated Sparrow to my trip list.

Tomorrow we're heading for the wonderful Davis Mountains for a full day before heading east again to Kerrville on our way to the Rio Grande Valley.

Trip total 42

Apologies for the dodgy display yesterday. Think I cut instead of copied!?

Stay tuned...

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