Category Archives: raptors

murderers and birderers [206 – 221]

Another lifer we missed

South Padre Island isn’t just popular with birders and girls gone wild, it’s also big with escaped convicts and murderers. The day we got there, some concerned citizen claimed to have seen escaped murderer Richard Lee McNair hanging out among the tourists. He was all over the web a week or two ago in an extraordinary police video. You get to watch McNair convince the hapless cop who pulled him over that he’s got the wrong man. Amazing. Anyway, we didn’t see nothing and we ain’t saying a thing.

In today’s birding news, Pole and I headed off to the Sabal Palm Audubon Center and Sanctuary, which is south of Brownsville, near the Mexican border. A very lush place, but — you guessed it — hotter than hell. Lots of paths and walkways, and lots of birds, too. It was even more uncomfortable than our trip to High Island, where we burned beyond recognition. Our system today was to go out for short expeditions and then return, panting, to the water fountain at the visitor center.

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like hell, but with sno-cones [179 – 191]

And don't forget the venomous ivy

Today started as another driving day, this time from Rockport to South Padre Island. We paused at a rest stop along the way, and saw the amazing sign on the right. Never mind that they mean “venomous,” not “poisonous,” but what halfwit is going to walk their pet after reading such a warning? Only in Texas. Lots of boat-tailed grackles here, and this was the first time we heard their outrageous squawking. They can make the most hellish, unbirdlike sounds imaginable. That must be why they’re called “niños del diablo.” (I just made that up.)

We drove south on Route 77, a raptor hotspot, and sure enough, we spotted a CRESTED CARACARA and HARRIS’S HAWK in short order. Pole got to claim them first because she saw them longer and knew what to look for. But we saw more of both before long, so I got to check them off, too. In fact, the Harris’s were all over the place.

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finally, the owl [79 – 80]

Once again, we decided to search for the short-eared owl at Glacial Park. But our first stop today was the Chicago Botanic Garden in north-suburban Glencoe. We don’t come here much anymore, but we did a lot of our early birding here. Today we just stopped by so I could renew my membership. But in the pond next to the parking lot we did see a pair of TRUMPETER SWANS. They were only about ten feet away, so it was no problem distinguishing them from the similar tundra swan. We then continued north and made a brief stop at the Wadsworth Wetlands Demonstration Project, which is in north-suburban — you guessed it — Wadsworth. We didn’t see any birds, but we did identify what we think was a Nazi.

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saved by ducks [65 – 78]

The Illinois bird list said there were some short-eared owls at Rollins Savannah, so we decided to give it a try. The savanna is a new preserve located in a northern Chicago suburb called Grayslake. An ugly, mall-filled suburb. Unfortunately, since the savanna is flat, you always know you’re in the middle of an ugly mall-filled suburb. We only saw a few birds and left after half an hour. Jesus, Mary, and St. Patrick, do I hate birding ugly places. Does that make me a bad birder?

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no hawks were violated [51]

Today was our last day in Minnesota, and we decided to bird Sax-Zim bog, a rural area northwest of Duluth and famous for birding. We planned to stay till noon and then drive back to Chicago. We stayed till dusk, of course, and didn’t get home until 1:30 am. We still hadn’t seen any Great Gray Owls this trip, and since we saw a lot of them at Sax-Zim last year, we hoped we might get lucky.

We started on Route 133, where, almost immediately, we saw a large raptor. It was sitting in a tree and turned out to be a juvenile Bald Eagle. An adult (mom or dad?) was just perched just a little down the road. Then we saw another raptor flying over a field. Pole identified it right away by the distinctive markings under its wings: a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK. Another lifer for us both. We actually saw two of them, so they might have been a breeding pair. We saw them frequently as we drove around the bog.

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