Tagging

Thursday we went to the Hawk Watch for a couple of hours. We did see a couple of kettles of vultures, a Swainson's Hawk fly over our heads, and two Grey Hawks fly close enough for me to see. There was an Grooved-billed Ani that came up close but it stayed in the bushes. When we arrived there were several more at the watch than what are shown here in my photo, this is close to 12:30 when not much is happening.Friday, we drove around and ended up stopping at the Palo Alto Battlefield National Park. It is where the war to gain the southwest territories from Mexico was started in 1845. The 15 min. movie was informative but the park is a little boring, it is on the birding map. We did see several birds, the most exciting one was the White-tailed Kite, too far for me to get a photo but Ken brought out his big lens and tried.
Later that afternoon we went to the RV park's happy hour, not many attend anymore since a lot of the people have gone home. We ended up learning and playing a new game with 3 other couples til 9:30, it was alot of fun. It reminded me of a game I used to play years ago call Aggravation only with cards instead of dice.

Today, we went to our favorite birding place, Ramsey, when we drove into the parking lot we wondered what's going on the lot is about full! We learned a bird tagging was going on by the Texas Fish and Wildlife, so we went and watched. It was about over but we got to see them release one bird and tag one bird. They had caught 20 birds this morning to tag. They use a really light weight net strung out amoung the trees and bushes.

This is Mark Conway the tagger with a Long-billed Thrasher.

Here they are taking photos of a Orange-crowned Warbler before they release it.

We went and checked on the Pauraque and here it is with it's chick, can you see the little chick just in front of the mom.

We've had a beautiful week, lite winds perfect temps. Today, the winds came back and we have turned on our air conditioner.