IOWA - WANAKA STATE PARK

Kathi, Carina, her girlfriend Sam and I just started a road trip/vacation and we were passing through Iowa today. We took a brief time out from passing through the many cornfields to spend a little time birding in a small park in the nw portion of the state. Even at midday there was a nice selection of birds including Barred Owl, both Orchard and Baltimore Orioles, three or four Red-headed Woodpeckers, several Yellow-throated Vireos, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and many other great birds. For Kathi the top bird was Dickcissel, which was a lifer. We had seen many 'possible' Dickcissels at high speed as we drove along interstates, but at the end of this park we came across a nice close co-operative pair. Here is the best image I got of the male. Later we would see dozens of males as we drove west towards out next stop in South Dakota!

TEXAS DAY 1

Last night Ethan and I met up and had dinner with our good friend Bruce DiLabio. Then early this morning we headed for some coastal migrant traps to see if a cold front and some light rain had brought any birds in. This was day 1 of our shoot in Texas and it started off REALLY well. Two birds I really wanted to shoot here were Scarlet Tanager and Indigo Bunting... and boy were those co-operative today!





In the afternoon the weather became 'unshootable' if there is such a word. Prior to that another fun bird was a male Dickcissel.


So we are off to a GREAT start and looking forward to more in the days to come!