Last Days in West Texas

We spent the month of November at Bentsen Palm next to Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park.  This is one of the many sunrises we enjoyed before early morning walks into the park.

There are many feeding stations at the park and not only birds come get the bits of grain.  This Wood Rat would rush out, grab seed and hurry back to the grass for cover.



On one of the tram rides around the 3 mile circle, we had the driver stop to photograph this Bull Snake as he slithered across the road.

We did a night tour with the naturalist and Park Ranger and this scorpion was one of the creatures we found.

As we were looking for butterflies we found this Praying Mantid also looking for and preying on the brown long-tailed skipper.

We drove back to Estero Llano Grande State Park and met up with Wisconsin birders Jerry & Karen Smith for a cool morning of birding finding lots of "cool" birds including this Yellow-crowned Night-heron.

We left Mission, TX on Dec. 1st and headed west.  Our first stop was Salineno bird feeding area now run by the Fish & Wildlife Service.  The two special orioles coming here are the Audubon's (yellow) and the Hooded (orange).

This area is located right on the Rio Grande and this Osprey found some Talapia for breakfast.

We spent 3 days at Falcon State Park in the more desert habitat of Texas.  These Bobwhites were coming to the feeder blind.

This male Pyrrhuloxia was also enjoying a treat at the feeder.

Near our campsite, the Greater Roadrunners were many times running across the road.

                      (Beep! Beep!)

One morning, heavy fog-dew covered the myriad of spider webs along the trail.

This White-eyed Vireo bade us farewell to Texas as we traveled northwest through freezing fog and cold mountain areas of New Mexico into Southeastern Arizona.


We wish you all a Merry and Christ filled Christmas.

Ty & Ida Baumann