Rio Grande
Marcia Watson-Whitmyre (mww@UDel.Edu)
Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:10:07 -0400
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Tyler Bell wrote:
> Marcia, Norm and Fran:
>
> Do you all have any target birds in the valley? Jane and I have birded
> extensively there and might be able to give you some pointers that might
> not be so easy to glean from the ABA guide.
>
Tyler and Jane, Thanks very much for the offer of help! I
do have the ABA guide, but this is my first trip to Texas,
so I am feeling overwhelmed and am trying to gather my wits
about me and come up with a plan. My husband George and son
Andy do not bird much, and I feel responsible for showing
them a good time. Oddly enough, they do enjoy birding on
away trips, rather than around home, and they seem to get
more out of it if we spend a lot of time at each site,
rather than blitzing through. The other point I have to
remember is that they like to actually stop and eat hot
meals at restaurants - when I am by myself I just throw a
cooler in the car and keep birding.
I haven't gotten to the point of developing a complete and
realistic target bird list yet. So far, the plan calls for
us to stay at first in the McAllen area and to start birding
at Falcon Dam and work our way down the Valley, doing a
couple/three key sites each day. After a few days, we will
probably relocate to a B&B on South Padre Island and do some
birding along the coast. Then we will head north for a day
at King Ranch and finish up in the Rockport area, hoping
that the whoopers will be in (so it is really Valley+).
That's about as far as I have gotten. We are going to move
around to a couple of new motels or whatever because I want
to be close to the birding sites - Andy and George don't
like to get up real early and we want to be able to hit the
spots in the morning without having a long drive.
Can you recommend a place to stay in McAllen, or even closer
to Falcon Dam? We tend to like smaller motels, or even
B&B's. A ranch with guest facilities would be perfect. I
don't like staying in an urban area on birding trips - it
seems like such a let-down after being outdoors all day.
I've got the names of a couple of places in South Padre and
Rockport, so I think I'm OK there.
Do you know of any nearby birding sites in Mexico? Andy is
"collecting" countries, so we will probably make a dash over
the border at some point. We would rather bird than play
tourist. I have tried looking on the web but couldn't come
up with anything in Tamaulipas.
In the next couple of days, I will do some serious homework
with the ABA guide and come up with a target bird list.
I'll be back in touch then and ask for some pointers.
Thanks again for your gracious offer.
At some point perhaps we should take this discussion
off-list so that we don't annoy the troops.
Marcia
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