We spent the last two days sallying forth from our slightly cooler base in Chisos Basin to the warmer ends of the park. They have been a couple of hot days.
Yesterday our little birding group headed out at 7AM for Rio Grande Village which is the major campground and right on the river. It was still passably cool when we arrived. We spent a couple of hours looking along the alley of Cottonwoods and bushes that lead west from the store towards Hot Springs Canyon. By the time we reached the end it was too hot to take the hike to the hot springs. Ellen and I have walked that trail before and they aren't particularly impressive hot springs (and who need them in 90° weather.
We did see two life birds during that walk, a nesting pair of Common Black-hawks and a Varied Bunting. The hawks were quite black and quite large and the bunting a dark blue with a reddish head, not as flashy as its Painted Bunting cousin, but quite sharp.
We then moved over to the campground to look some more among the trees and out on the marsh. We heard Clapper Rails, but they were unseen and there were a variety of warblers, orioles and vireos in the trees.
After that it was a drive out to the Boquillas Overlook, where there wasn't much birdlife in the hot sun, but a good view of the Rio Grande and the Mexican town of Boquillos across the river. Boquillos is a little town 90 miles from anywhere except Big Bend National Park. When Ellen and I were here before the border was closed so we weren't allowed to visit a small town whose major source of income had been tourism. It was looking pretty sad.
They reopened the border crossing a couple of years ago (undoubtably before Trump) and there is now a Port of Entry on the US side and little boats to bring tourists across and back. The town is looking much more tidy now and they seem to now have a large solar farm for power and a cell tower. Unfortunately, it is now out of season at the park (the campground was nearly empty except for the small section with powered sites) and the border post is only open Friday to Monday, so no visit to Mexico on this trip.
It was back to the village store for needed cold drinks and lunch in the shade of their porch. After lunch we made a stop at Dugout Wells, the site of an old water well and desert oasis. It felt cooler walking among the Cottonwoods and there was quite an array of bird species taking advantage of the shade and food. We then returned to Chisos Basin where it was 10° cooler. Where we spent the afternoon sitting outside the visitor center in the shade with more cool drinks.
This morning it was off to the other side of the park to Costolon and the Cottonwoods campground. We again made a 7AM start and got to Cottonwood while it was relatively cool. This is a much simpler campground than either Rio Grande Village or Chisos Basin. It has really nice large shaded sites among the trees, but only vault toilets and a single point for getting water. It was also on the river and almost empty, butit had lots of birds, most of which we'd seen before—except for the nesting pair of Gray Hawks. These are small er birds, but very striking with gray wings and horizontal stripes across the front of the body. They were high in a Cottonwood, but one gave au a very nice flyover.
Ellen and I had only had far away looks at Gray Hawks before, so this was a treat. Our new hawk, however, was a Zone-tailed Hawk, which flew over Ellen and I and then over the trees before we could get anyone else on it. At first glance it looked like just another Turkey Vulture, but it was close enough that we could plainly see that it was a hawk and had the right tail and head for the Zone-tailed. The Zone-tailed Hawk is know for its trick of soaring with a kettle of Turkey Vultures and blending in. The thought is that it uses the behavior to hunt, since the vultures aren't predators of live animals, but the hawk is...
It was getting hot again after a couple of hours of birding at Cottonwood, so with only a brief stop at Sam Neil Ranch, another treed oasis site with a working windmill providing a water source, where we found no birds, it was back to the slightly cooler climes of Chisos Basin for lunch in the shade by the lodge.
After lunch, we bid farewell to Jim, Ernie, Paul and Christine. They were going to Terlingua for the night and the Christmas Mountains tomorrow before heading back to San Antonio and back to Boston.
We are continuing west in the morning on our way to Arizona. We hope to make it to New Mexico tomorrow. Hope is the operative word. Speedy had the transmission sensor fault again today. I was able to clear it again, but it was the fourth time on the trip. It seems to happen after hard downhill stops in hot weather, but that might only be coincidental, but the trip is only going to get hotter.
More news tomorrow...maybe.
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