Migration ramped up

I saw my FOS Lazuli Bunting today. Couldn't get a shot. By the time I ran for my camera it had taken a quick drink and left. Beautiful male though. A short time later I saw a bird perched on a mesquite next to a mulberry tree. The back was black, the breast was red. No white on it, so I'm thinking it has to be a Slate-throated Redstart. I ran for my camera (can't carry it and get work done too) as it dove into a mulberry tree. I spent the next 2 hours searching for it. All that was there, besides the mockingbirds, etc., was a male Varied Bunting. I'm still trying to convince myself that's the bird I saw, but I know what I saw. I got a good look. Whatever. I'm not counting it. Here's the bunting. Looks nothing like the other bird I saw. See update below.

Ok, I've been studying and thinking and I'm 100% positive it was a Slate-throated Redstart. For one thing, it couldn't be an artifact of lighting. I was looking NNE toward the sun. I was seeing the shadowed side of the bird. I got a good clear close look, enough to see that some of the wing edges were whitish. I noticed the same look on the STRE photos in Stoke's guide. My main arguing point against it being a STRE was size. I thought the size fit a VABU, and an STRE was smaller. So imagine my surprise to learn they're the same size. I studied VABUs all day in all lights. No way was it a VABU. It couldn't have been anything except a STRE. And considering that the books list them as casual in W TX, I don't see the conflict with that ID. I think it got a drink and moved on, just like the Lazuli did. I can't explain why they didn't eat berries unless they ate before I got to the oasis around 7:30 AM. I'm going to count it.

And here's a bird that's here year-round but always fun to observe. It pecked on that buckeye seed pod until the pod fell off the tree. And then, I suppose, it wondered where the pod disappeared to.