Texas Journeys
Explorations in Texas.
2025
2024-05-03 Kickapoo Caverns
In 2024, I travelled to Texas to experience the Total Solar Eclipse on April 4. Cloud-cover limited the drama for the eclipse. But all was not lost, because after the…
2024-04-14 Sunday at Laguna Atascosa
2024-04-12 Friday I wanted to stay at Andy Bowie County Park while on South Padre Island. Before leaving Midland, Texas, I worked on getting a space reserved for Sunday, Monday,…
2024-04-08 Texas Solar Eclipse
2024-04-06 Saturday The trip to Texas to see the eclipse began with a blown right rear tire. The spare was not in the best of condition, and after a long…
2024-04-28 “Big Sit” at the National Butterfly Center
Organized by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, the “Big Sit” is a bird-watching event that takes place each year during the Great Texas Birding Classic, or GTBC. There are…
2024
2024-05-07 Davis Mountains
Following the past few enjoyable days at Kickapoo Caverns, I continued moving west toward my San Diego home. However, I had not quite finished with Texas, and Texas had not…
2024 Big Sit at the National Butterfly Center
The first shift’s vigil at the National Butterfly Center’s “Big Sit” event began on Sunday at 5:00am. The sunlight had not begun to show. In the darkness, we could hear…
2024-04-22 SPI Convention Centre
Near mid-day the sky began a light rain at Sheepshead Bird Sanctuary. So, having already captured so many birds my head was spinning, I collected my gear and headed back…
2024-04-22 Sheepshead Bird Sanctuary
Monday, the birding gods blessed us with a *significant* fallout. Most of us here have seen a *MAJOR* fallout, where birds carpeted the lawns and filled the trees. Monday’s event…
2024-04-20 South Padre Island
Friday, I extended my stay at Andy Bowie Park for another two days. If the storms come in this weekend, it may bring the high-flying migrating warblers down to our…
2024-04-19 SPI Convention Centre
Despite the slowness of birding on the island, there were still a few treasures to be mined. I had been splitting my time between the Birding and Nature Center and…
2024-04-17 South Padre Island
I took a little over 1000 pics on my Wednesday visit. The morning was underwhelming, but It turned out to be a pretty good afternoon. At the Convention Centre, I…
2024-04-15 South Padre Island
After a brief peek at the bird action at the SPI Convention Centre this morning, I enjoyed breakfast at my new ‘favorite’ cafe (Josephine’s) on South Padre Island this morning.…
2023
2023-07-04~08 In The Davis Mountains
I stayed four nights at Davis Mountains State Park. For $20 a night with electricity, it was a bargain. I hoped it would give me a chance to make progress…
2023-07-04 Gage Gardens, Marathon TX
Tuesday morning I broke camp early at the rest area 20 miles east of Marathon Texas. I drove to town and had breakfast at the Oasis Cafe. Marathon has a…
2023-July Texas Rest Area Birds
For many reasons I enjoy touring Texas. There is much I enjoy about Texan culture. One is their thoughtfully placed mini-oasis along their two-lane highways. Criss-crossing their vast remote landscapes,…
2023-Early July At Kickapoo Caverns
As I write these notes, I have returned to my southern California homestead. The past three weeks have been so hectic, I have not had time to properly tell the…
2023-06-25 High Island
It’s been nearly two weeks since I published my last episode about my 2023 North American Expedition. Since then, I have fallen way behind in my story-telling chores. Having crossed…
2022
2022 Expedition in Review
On February 27, I left San Diego on what turned out to be a 16,000 mile tour of western North America that lasted 7½ months. I began with a slow…
2022-10-04 Davis Mountains
Davis Mountains State Park has its origins in the 1930s as a Civilian Conservation Corps project to help lift the broken economy out of the depression. The Civilian Conservation Corps…
2022-10-01 Kickapoo Caverns
I spent two nights at Fort Clark in Brackettville Texas. It was my base camp during my tour of Kickapoo Caverns State Park, about 30 miles away. In the spring…
2022 September at the National Butterfly Center
During the last week in September 2022, it was my pleasure to spend several days with friends and visiting wildlife at the National Butterfly Center in Mission Texas. I spent…
2022-09-25 Rollin’ on the River
My friend Luciano told me how much fun it was to explore the Rio Grande aboard our friends Matt and Marianna’s boat. So when I ran into them at the…
2022-09-22 Santa Ana NWR
I learned a new word recently: “Documentarian”. The Oxford Dictionary’s first definition is “a photographer specializing in producing a factual record.” I believe it perfectly describes the goals I set…
2022-09-20 Tuesday at Quinta Mazatlán
I spent most of Tuesday suffering for my art, under the heat and humidity that hung like a blanket over the 20 acre bird sanctuary in McAllen Texas, called Quinta…
2022-09-19 Edinburg Scenic Wetlands
Monday, when I finished getting the warranty work done on my RV in Weslaco, I drove to Edinburg and paid a visit to the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands only 21 miles…
2022-09-18 SPI Farewell
I ended my visit to South Padre Island on Sunday. I spent the day touring the SPI Birding and Nature Center, and it yielded a few close encounters with the…
2022-09-17 SPI Beaches
Saturday, I fulfilled my ambition to ride my bike up the beach and look for plovers. I drove north a few miles from the Convention Centre and found a parking…
2022-09-16 SPI on a Friday
Friday, after my morning visits with the birds at Sheepshead and later at the SPI Convention Centre, I took a break from the worst of the midday heat, and retired…
2022-09-15 Thursday on the Island
As my time on South Padre draws near its end, I wish I could stay for months, instead of the weeks available in my time-budget. It is especially hard to…
2022-09-12 SPI on Monday
September days on South Padre Island can be hot as hell, with enough humidity to keep me dripping in sweat from dawn to dusk, and through the night. It can…
2022-09-11 Sunday on South Padre Island
After breakfast Sunday, I stopped at Sheepshead, where I met a Northern Parula and a more typical female Blackburnian Warbler than the bird I met on Saturday at the SPI…
2022-09-10 Saturday on SPI
I spent Saturday morning with the birds and birders visiting the SPI Convention Centre, and met Black-and-White Warblers, Blackburnian Warblers, Canada Warblers, and Nashville Warblers. Of the birds on this…
2022-09-08 on the Island
Thursday and Friday I split my time between the SPI Birding and Nature Center and the SPI Convention Centre. But it was my long day at the Convention Centre Thursday…
2022-09-06 SPI Convention Centre
What can I say about the South Padre Island Convention Centre I’ve not said already? For me, last Tuesday had an added enjoyable dimension to my visit, when my friend…
2022-09-05 SPI Convention Centre
Having skipped one day of birding on Sunday, I was eager to get out and hunt for birds. It was a dreary, drizzly morning on the island, with a lot…
2022-09-03 Saturday at the SPIBNC
I spent the day soloing at the SPI Birding and Nature Center (BNC), and had a lovely time with the birds and with the people there with me, enjoying the…
2022-09-02 SPI Day Two
My friend Mary caught up with me while I was exploring the Sheepshead Bird Sanctuary Friday morning. She told me she found both a Prairie and a Prothonotary Warbler there…
2022-09-01 SPI Day One
I met my friend Mary after breakfast at the SPI Convention Centre, after I first stopped by the Sheepshead Bird Sanctuary owned by the Valley Land Trust. As I was…
2022-08-30 at Laguna Atascosa NWR
Monday, I drove to Estero Llano Grande, one of the premiere birding destinations in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. I rode my bike over several miles of trails there, but…
2022-08-21 Mustang Island
Mustang Island is one of the long strips of dune islands, or barrier islands off the Gulf Coast of Texas that protect the mainland from the worst fury of the…
2022-08-21 Sunday Tour of Blackjack Peninsula
After leaving High Island, and exploring Anahuac NWR, I continued south and spent some time at Brazoria NWR and San Bernard NWR. My next targeted destination was the Blackjack Peninsula,…
2022-08-18 Thursday’s Gulf Coast Tour
I slept at the Walmart Astoria (i.e. parking lot) Wednesday night, but before I retired, calculated my route for Thursday. I set one of my destinations up for the Brazoria…
2022-08-17 Anahuac NWR
I broke camp at High Island early and drove to the nearby Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge to explore. I’d visited the refuge previously in March 2021. I began my tour…
2022-08-14 High Island
I left Kansas with Texas as my destination. The drive required three long days of driving. On the first two days, I covered about 300 miles each day. But the…
2021
2021 Texas Exodus
The trip home: 2021-05-09 Day 1, Port Isabel to National Butterfly Center 2021-05-10 Day 2, NBC to Rio Grande City 2021-05-11 Day 3, Rio Grande City to Uvalde 2021-05-12 Day…
2021-05-10 National Butterfly Center
I couldn’t think of leaving Texas without seeing my friends at the National Butterfly Center (NBC) one more time. My planned route carried me through Mission anyway, so it was…
2021-05-08 SPI’s Friday Beaches
I spent much of my last day on South Padre Island on the sandy flat beach north of the Convention Centre. Until this day, I’d neglected this habitat for gulls,…
2021-05-04,5,6 SPI: The Big Fallout That Wasn’t
This is a three day post. With my 2021 visit in South Texas drawing to a close, I’ve been pushing my limits to maximize my opportunities to meet migrating birds.…
2021-05-02 SPI On A Sunday
I spent Sunday at South Padre Island (Texas) and couldn’t resist shooting flycatchers. For most of us interested in learning to identify birds, small flycatchers are among the most difficult…
2021-04-29 Mini-Fallout at SPI
Thursday morning started off slow and stayed that way most of the day, but ended with a flurry of activity when a new batch of warblers fell from the sky.…
2021-04-27 SPI and Tuesday’s Babies
Earlier in April, I visited the South Padre Island Birding & Nature Center and saw Green Herons sitting on eggs. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to return and see…
2021-04-25 “Big Sit” At The National Butterfly Center
Sunday’s Big Sit event at the National Butterfly Center was such fun. As part of the Great Texas Birding Classic put on each year by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department,…
2021-04-22 SPI On A Slow Thursday
My stay at the Convention Centre was relatively brief this Thursday. There was a lull in the migration, but even on a slow day, good things can occur here. In…
2021-04-20 SPI Tuesday’s Bright Sun
Addendum: I learned recently, with the help of more experienced birders, that the bird I identified as a Philadelphia Vireo was, in fact, a Warbling Vireo, and the guide I…
2021-04-18 SPI Sunday Bird Fallout, Round Two
Gone were the dense clouds and drizzling rain that plagued me early Saturday. The wind and the birds remained. There seemed to be even more birds on the island than…
2021-04-17 SPI, Great Birds, Lousy Weather
Well friends, I said I would limit my photo shooting time in the field to half days. The strategy would allow me to process my images and tell my stories…
2021-04-15 SPI And Three Bags Full
I had an exceptional day at the SPI Convention Centre. I met three new bird species: Veery, Dickcissel, and Black-Billed Cuckoo. Not that the rest of the birds I met…
2021-04-13 South Padre Fog
I left Brownsville in the darkness of pre-dawn, with plans to meet birds on South Padre Island as they began their morning rounds. It seemed a good idea to be…
2021-04-11 SPI: New Actors and Familiar Faces On Stage
I should have learned my lesson by now. This day reminded me when I’m trying to track a subject bouncing through the canopy, the effort is all-consuming. There’s not always…
2021-04-08 SPI Birding & Nature Center
I’ve made it no secret. My mission is to experience as much of the vernal migration through South Texas as I can. South Padre Island is the best place I…
2021-04-06 SPI Reruns
If the show is good enough, it bears watching repeatedly. A second look may teach us something new. We might see something worthwhile that we missed on the first go-round.…
2021-04-04 Continuing the SPI Saga
The early spring migration season on South Padre Island has been exciting for me. I’m finding one or more new bird species with each visit. The privilege of witnessing so…
2021-04-02 Back to South Padre Island
If you are passionate about birds, I believe there is no better place to hang out than South Padre Island during spring migration. As a kid growing up near the…
2021-03-30 SPI Convention Centre
In the coming weeks, I intend to spend as much of my time on South Padre Island as I can. Spring migrant birds could begin trickling into Texas any time.…
2021-03-27 Palmito Hill & Boca Chica Beach
Just 10 miles inland from Boca Chica Beach is Palmito Hill, another of my favorite birding locations. On my way to the beach, I stopped to scout the birding opportunities.…
2021-03-26 Sabal Palms Again
It was only a week ago I visited Sabal Palm Sanctuary. Just 5 miles from my camp in Brownsville (Texas), I paid a brief, 3+ hour visit to this nature reserve…
2021-03-24 At Estero Llano, Even Slow Days Are Good
I first visited Estero Llano Grande State Park this year in January (2021-01-22). On that visit, I walked on my explorations, so I could only get to a few of…
2021-03-21 Resaca2mi de la Palma
I last visited Resaca de la Palma State Park just before leaving Texas on my first visit in spring of 2020. It was closed during most of my stay because…
2021-03-19 Friday Among Sabal Palms
Only five miles south from my camp in Brownsville (Texas), Sabal Palm Sanctuary is an attractive birding destination. Nestled into the southernmost arc of the Rio Grande, it has jungle…
2021-03-16 SPI Convention Centre
On this early Tuesday morning, cloudy gray skies greeted me at the South Padre Island Convention Centre (SPICC). I investigated the center’s bayside and its boardwalks, but the birds were…
2021-03-12 Friday at Aransas NWR
Camped only five miles away in Austwell (Texas), an excursion into Aransas National Wildlife Refuge was mandatory. With the recent stories of my journey here already told, it was time…
2021-03-10 Wednesday at San Bernard NWR
I spent the night Tuesday at a rest stop on the Interstate-10 freeway east of Houston. I endured a lot of drive time exiting Louisiana after I decided not to…
2021-03-09 Tuesday’s Quick Visit To Louisiana
I woke up this morning and had plans to visit the Rockefeller Wildlife Nature Reserve in Louisiana. I took a ferry ride across the waterway at Cameron and drove past…
2021-03-08 Anahuac NWR
I broke camp at High Island early Monday and set a course for nearby Anahuac National Wildlife Reserve. I planned a quick visit before heading east on my clock-wise journey…
2021-03-06 High Island Rookery
I left Galveston on Thursday (2021-03-04) and crossed the bay by ferry on a 2½ mile passage to the Bolivar Peninsula. Back on Terra Firma, I drove 28 miles to…
2021-03-04 Galveston Boat Ride
I continued my exploration of the Texas Gulf Coast last Wednesday (2021-03-03) when I drove from Aransas NWR to Galveston, 170 miles to the east. After spotting birds loafing on…
2021-03-02 Tuesday Morning At Aransas NWR
Sunday I left Port Aransas and drove to Rockport and boondock camped there. Monday I confirmed the availability of RV parking near Aransas NWR, in Austwell. I drove through the…
2021-02-28 Port Aransas Nature Center
The Port Aransas Nature Center had a popular boardwalk over the freshwater marshes on the property until 2017’s Hurricane Harvey dismantled it beyond use. Not ones to give up easily,…
2021-02-25 National Butterfly Center
I tried to visit the National Butterfly Center last week, but the big freeze and the power outage at the time mandated that they close, so I had to turn…
2021-02-23 First Time At Quinta Mazatlan
Quinta Mazatlan is a 20 acre nature reserve owned and operated by the City of McAllen (Texas). Theirs is a story about a tiny victory in the war on the…
2021-02-21 First Visit To Santa Ana NWR
Last spring I came to South Texas for the first time, hoping to visit the many legendary birding venues I’d heard about in the Rio Grande Valley. Unfortunately for me…
2021-02-19 Bentsen RGVSP Again
I wanted to wait for my bicycle to finish up in the shop before I attempted more explorations of Bentsen Rio Grande State Park. South Texas has been hard hit…
2021-02-16 Bentsen RGV State Park
Another cold morning it was in South Texas this past Tuesday, but I was determined to get out and explore the region. The camp where I’m staying is only 1.5…
2021-02-11 SPI Convention Centre and Bahia Grande
Deciding where to spend my last day in Brownsville wasn’t easy. I plan to stay two more weeks in the Rio Grande Valley, but I want to explore sites further…
2021-02-08 South Padre Island Birding & Nature Center
South Padre Island Birding & Nature Center is part of a network of birding meccas in south Texas, collectively called the “World Birding Center”. It sits next door to the…
2021-02-06 Edinburg Scenic Wetlands
It takes a little over an hour of freeway driving to reach Edinburg (Texas) from my camp in Brownsville. The reserve encompasses 40 acres, but most of the trails available…
2021-02-04 Laguna Vista and Laguna Atascosa
My time in Brownsville is winding down, so I wanted to visit a location that I enjoyed very much during my spring visit last year. Laguna Atascosa NWR was one…
2021-02-01 Got To Get Back To South Padre
Visiting South Padre Island has never disappointed me. I began February with a visit to test this trend, and it fulfilled its promise to entertain, though a slow start in…
2021-01-30 Boca Chica Beach
I wanted to ride my bike on Boca Chica Beach all week, but operations at the Space-X Launch Complex mandated a closure of the road to the beach. Finally, on…
2021-01-28 Sabal Palms, Ten Days Hence
It was a foggy morning ten days ago when I visited Sabal Palm Sanctuary for the first time. It added an air of mystery to my introduction to this amazing…
2021-01-26 A Day at Palmito Hill
Fog was so thick, at 50 feet things faded from my view, and at 100 feet I could barely make out the shapes ahead of me while I drove. That…
2021-01-22 A Day at Estero Llano
Friday morning I launched out of my campsite on a mission to explore one of the crown jewels of birding in South Texas; Estero Llano Grande State Park, south of…
2021-01-19 A Day on South Padre Island
A visit to the Lower Rio Grande Valley without spending time on South Padre Island would be silly. Tuesday I paid the island my respects. It came as no surprise…
2021-01-18 Sabal Palm Sanctuary
On 2021-01-18, it was a foggy morning in south Texas at the Sabal Palm Sanctuary, and when I walked into the grove, it added an eerie, mystical quality to my…
2021-01-15 and 16 At Breeze Lake
Last spring, while on my way through Texas and the COVID-19 pandemic was taking a grip on our nation and the rest of the world, I’d been boondocking in my…
2021-01-11 Quemado Roadside Birds
Less than two miles south from the small town of Quemado Texas, is a roadside rest stop, or picnic area, as Texas calls them. I found this location while on…
2021-01-08 A Visit To Langtry Texas
Less than a half-mile from the Rio Grande, and almost 40 miles upstream from its confluence with the Pecos River, is the sleepy town of Langtry Texas. This is where…
2021-01-06, Winding Up My Stay in Big Bend
It was a week I’ll remember fondly. As I drove out of New Mexico late last December, I had doubts about being able to pull off a stay inside Big…
2021-01-02 Big Bend’s Ross Maxwell Drive
New Year’s Day and Saturday night, I stayed in Terlingua (Texas). I waited there until I could take advantage of my Sunday night reservation for camping in Cottonwood. Saturday morning…
2020-12-29 On The Texas Mountain Trail
When I drove away from the Guadalupe Mountains, I took TX-54 south from US-62 to Van Horn Texas. I kept seeing road signs along the highway saying “The Texas Mountain…
2020
2020-12-27 Sunday Camping in Guadalupe National Park
After spending most of December in New Mexico, I left The Land of Enchantment after a productive Christmas photo session with Scaled Quail at Bitter Lake NWR outside of Roswell.…
Ever Closer To Hitting The Road
When I returned home in late May of this year from my Texas expedition, I expected it to be a couple of months before I would embark on a new…
2020 Texas Birds Annual Magazine
I was honored to contribute to the 2020 Texas Birds Annual Magazine of the Texas Ornithological Society (TOS). This spring, during my jaunt through Texas I was sharing my blogs…
2020-05-16: Recounting My Passage From Texas
During my first expedition into Texas in 2020, I learned that Texas Rest Areas and Picnic Areas could be phenomenal places to meet birds. I found this especially true of…
2020-05-07: Texas Farewell
On Monday, March 23rd, I settled into the Breeze Lake RV Campground in Brownsville Texas expecting to stay for one week to get my refrigerator repaired. One thing led to…
2020-04-17: Feeder Vigil in Brownsville
I believe I’ve identified the birds in the gallery below correctly, but I welcome any corrections that experienced Texas birders might care to share. I’ve always tried to be a…
Brownsville Birds: Texas Quail
On 2020-04-06, I was staying at the Breeze Lake RV Park in Brownsville. Because of the pandemic, access to South Padre Island was cut off for all but residents. I…
Brownsville Birds: Red-Crowned Parrots
Being trapped, so to speak, by the COVID-19 pandemic, my bird explorations have been curtailed. Rather than attempt a series of long yarns, I thought I’d share a few image…
2020-04-01 April 1st In Camp
I had done no bird photography since arriving in Brownsville on March 19th. With my backlog of stories about my birding adventures on the Central Gulf of Texas finished, I…
2020-03-22 Passing Through Harlingen Texas
In Harlingen Texas, where I stayed Sunday night, I noticed Red-Crowned Parrots. So I did a little research and read about a neighborhood where they’d been seen before. I set…
2020-03-20 Exploring Laguna Atascosa
After I left Corpus Christi, measures against the COVID-19 outbreak began tightening. Restaurants could only seat a limited number of customers, and grocers were limiting the amount of products like…
2020-03-19 Adios Corpus Christi
By Thursday I knew it was time to explore my way south into the Lower Rio Grande Valley. I’d had three days to explore Aransas NWR, and a couple of…
2020-03-17 Tuesday After The Boat Ride
I said my goodbyes to the Skimmer and her crew in Fulton Beach after a wonderful morning full of highlights at Aransas NWR. I fully expected to settle in somewhere…
2020-03-17 Aransas By Sea
I arrived at 215 North Fulton Beach Road in Fulton, Texas at 8:30am. Our departure aboard the Skimmer was scheduled for 9am, so I had some time to assemble my…
2020-03-16 Monday Afternoon In Rockport
I drove to the city of Rockport after leaving from my second day at Aransas and prepared for the boat ride I’d signed up for, which launched from nearby Fulton…
2020-03-16 Aransas NWR Day 2
“Wow” hardly seems sufficient to describe my morning! I stayed in Austwell Sunday night, and I was only 12 miles from Aransas NWR, so I could achieve an early launch…
2020-03-15 My First Day At Aransas NWR
As I write this episode, I’ve been so involved taking pictures this past week that I buried myself under a ton of work to prepare them for my stories. I…
2020-03-13 Three Days At The Triple R
Sadly, shortly after my March-2020 visit to the Triple-R RV Resort, (but before the Covid-19 pandemic) they shutdown operations. I’ve heard no word about any plans to reopen. I personally,…
2020-03-09 A Whirlwind Tour Of Del Rio Texas
I pulled away from Marathon early Sunday morning and headed towards Del Rio Texas on US-90 under gray and cloudy skies. It is a wide, flat valley where Marathon resides.…
2020-03-07: Bird Adventures In Big Bend
Prologue The Texas adventure I dreamed about for years began in California, but passed through Arizona and New Mexico before reaching the promised land. Preparations for my journey began in…