Catching up

 Day before yesterday Dale and I had a great birding trip to Lajitas and Cottonwood Campground (in Big Bend National Park). How bad can winter be when we can still enjoy birding! Except at the oasis. Nothing interesting there. At Cottonwood Campground we were surprised to find a Warbling Vireo. Not a great photo but lucky to get any.

Saw a Snow Goose  and Eared Grebe at Lajitas...

...and many other nice species. Then we stopped at the waste water treatment plant in Study Butte where we saw a Least Grebe. May or may not have been the same one I had at the oasis last fall.

Yesterday I went to the oasis to service feeders and check things over. All that snow Lee shoveled onto the roof, and none made it into the catchment tank. Such is life! I think when we get a big deluge of rain it'll work fine but when it melts slowly there are too many leaks in the gutter, or something. He's going to work on it, but we hardly ever get snow like that so it shouldn't normally be a problem. Still, would be nice to catch it. The one at the carport caught a couple of feet in its tank.

I did some pruning to where the paths are open and the rest doesn't bother me, so good there. I had done the worst stuff last time I was there. With the weight of the snow gone, things look pretty normal. Naturally, I wore myself out cleaning out a storage shed. Full of junk I won't ever use in my old age and Lee wouldn't know what to keep and what to toss. Discarded a very full pickup load. Couldn't even get it all in. Sort of an end of an era, but I'm very grateful that I can participate in the transition rather than dump it on Lee when I'm gone.

Then today, I got the urge to go to Jeff Davis County and get a couple of species I didn't have for my JD county list. My targets were Common Ground-Dove and Ruddy Duck. I dipped on the dove, but got the duck. As a consolation I got better photos of a Ruddy Ground-Dove at the state park there.

I might just hang around the house tomorrow, but no promises!

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UPDATE! OMG! No wonder I dipped on the Common Ground-Dove! That's because the person that reported it on ebird was mistaken. It was actually the Ruddy Ground-Dove that she saw. Which I saw also. I should have done my homework and looked at her report before going for it. But, on the bright side, I did get a better photo of the RGDO, so all was not lost.