Kay and I headed back to Anzalduas Park today for our third visit looking for Hook-billed Kite. We got off to a slower than optimal start today and didn’t arrive until 9 AM. On arrival several excited birders were on the kite, and it had just slipped behind the trees by the dike. I had a couple of frantic moments trying to locate the bird, but shortly it started to rise on what seemed to be a thermal and soared higher and higher into the sky. We had nice long looks, though at a long distance. Finally I was able to get a scope on the pair of Hook-billed kites to confirm the ID with certainty. The very long tail excluded any buteo. The large size, compared to adjacent vultures almost as big, very wide wings pinched near the body with rounded ends, and the huge bill on a moderate sized head were classic. It was hard to tell color at all, but we were able to see tail banding on a couple of glimpses. High-fives were had all around.
The birds finally dropped down and disappeared behind the dike likely into the trees and did not reappear while we were there.
We spent some time looking for the previously sighted Zone-tailed Hawk, Greater Pewee and Dusky-capped flycatcher as well as our miss so far this trip for Kay the Ringed Kingfisher, but none of these were happening. We did see two nice Eastern bluebird males and heard a nice Couch’s kingbird. This was sweet after hearing three Tropical kingbirds here yesterday.
From here we decided to make one more try for Groove-billed ani at Estero Llano Grande State Park. It was reported earlier by a couple of hot birders, Greg Miller and “bird chick” Sharon Stiteler. They had better luck than we did, missing again today. Our afternoon trips to Estero have been less than spectacularly successful, missing the ani, the jacana, Blue-throated hummingbird, Tropical parula and Red-legged Honeycreeper. Still it’s a beautiful place, and I’ll be sure to return on any future visits.
We are calling it a day early today, catching up on rest and headed our early tomorrow for the Sable Palm Grove and surrounding hotspots tomorrow in Brownsville. We checked into our room at Staybridge Suites. I’m loving getting great 3-star rooms here in the RGV for $60-80./ night.