Happy Winter!

Only a few short hours until the shortest day of the year. We feel fortunate to be in southern Texas, even though the day was mostly cloudy and "only" in the 60s. Each day will be warmer, with highs in the 80s this weekend.

Our first priority today was to visit the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley state park down the road from where we are staying. Since we are staying in an area known as the "World Birding Center", we figured the state park would be a good place to begin our bird-watching adventures.

As it turns out, we saw our first couple of "new" species right here in the RV park where we will be staying for the coming month, before we even left this morning. To start with, yesterday we saw a flock of green parakeets that live here in the neighborhood. Then, this morning, one of our neighbors showed us the kiskadees at her water tray. We saw another one at the state park:

Kiskadee seen at Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park

I didn't get a photo of the parakeets, but here are some of the other birds we saw today:

The chachalaca is a chicken-sized bird that is found in mesquite woodlands.

The green jay was a colorful surprise at one of the feeding stations set up at the park.

This kingbird could be seen flying out to catch flying insects and returning to a perch such as this bare branch.

I assumed I was photographing a cardinal when I took this picture. Only when I looked at it on the computer did I see that it is instead an Oriole! It happens to be an Altamira Oriole, which I have never seen (or heard of) before.

Whereas it was too cloudy and cool to see many butterflies today, this region is known for its butterflies. In our hike through the woodland today, though, we did see this brown butterfly, which resembles a monarch, although it was smaller than a monarch. Also, it was all brown on the topside of the wings, without the usual stained glass pattern seen on Monarchs. I have learned today that this is called a Queen Butterfly.

I wasn't sure if this insect was a moth or a skipper, or a butterfly....I was pretty sure it wasn't a dead leaf because I had seen it flying just moments before taking this photo. It is orange on the upper-side of it's wings. Turns out it is called the American snout butterfly. There were lots of these in the woodlands where we hiked.

We are getting settled in to our new neighborhood where we will remain for the coming month. The people here are quite friendly and we are looking forward to the Christmas potluck on Sunday. There are lots of bird lovers nearby, most of whom maintain bird feeders on their patios. There are jam sessions once a week, as well as game nights. Tomorrow we look forward to a guided bird walk with a park naturalist, as well as warmer temperatures, so maybe we will see more than the ten or so species we saw today.

Happy Winter, everyone! Try to stay warm.

Mari