OMG! Where to begin...

I arrived at my oasis bright and early, dismayed by the wind. It was the first windy morning here since migration started and of course it had to happen when 30 birders were expected. I hate wind. To make it worse, the place was covered with cowbirds. I hate cowbirds. I thought, oh well, maybe the front brought in other migrants, like warblers. Not! It was cold too. Even the Massachusettes birders (pictured below) were cold. Only in the Big Bend! Did I mention I hate cold?

So after everyone left, I went up to the house and fixed myself lunch, downloaded photos, etc. Good thing they had asked me about a good place to eat in Study Butte, because after that I went down the hill to my oasis in hopes of getting better photos of some of the birds I had photographed earlier. And there before my eyes was a lovely expensive scope. I'd always wanted a better scope, but not that way. I quickly figured out which group it must have belonged to and rushed to the house to try to call them before they left the area. I left a message on one member's phone, then called the Mexican restaurant I had recommended. The man that answered didn't speak good English and thought I was asking about burgers, not birders. Using other descriptive words, "people that look at birds," he finally understood. I said it was an emergency and I needed to talk to someone (anyone) from the group. He said, "Call 911?" Anyway, finally he got the message and said they were leaving. I begged him to stop them, "emergency" etc. What a relief when the leader, Rene, came on the line. I hope that receiving an emergency call at a restaurant, where he must have assumed no one knew they were at, didn't frighten him overly. Gotta do what you gotta do. The irony here is that I speak quite passable Spanish and it never even occurred to me to do so. Now I finally understand how people start speaking their native language when they're in an urgent situation.

Rather than make the whole group come back the horrid road to my place, I took the scope to a place they would have to pass on their way to Alpine. Better one person lose an hour than the 12 of them in 2 vehicles, one of which was pretty low clearance. It just made more sense. So all's well that ends well, I guess. In spite of it all, I love birders and today's birders were all wonderful and fun. I hope they come back some other time when it's not windy. It wouldn't have felt cold without the wind.

I did accidentally get a halfway decent shot of the Lucifer Hummingbird display. The only problem is I didn't get the gorget color. Bummer!