Riverside Dreamer Pontoon Boat on the Rio Grande

Morning came very early today. I got up at 5 to get to the bus for my first excursion. And even so, I was the last one on the bus. I'll do better tomorrow.

We rode on the bus about 45 minutes to an hour to get to Mission where we boarded the Riverside Dreamer. A beautiful boat, just three weeks old was a wonderful setting for our excursion this morning.

A loud kiskadee greeted us from the lamppost as one of our first birds of the day. A black phoebe farther away and a Lincoln sparrow got us off to a good start. The fog was thick as we went upstream by the Chimney campground where my friends and I had camped on my first visit to the Valley.

We had attentive and knowledgeable guides who made every effort to find the birds and help us find them also.

It is so much fun to go birding with experienced birders. They know the birds not only by sight, but they can distinguish the differences between the bird calls. There were several birds that we could hear, but that never came into view. And with so many watching eyes, I doubt that we missed many birds this morning.

From the boat ride, the list of birds I saw:
Lesser scaup
Pied-billed grebe
neotropic cormorant
double crested cormorant
anhinga
great blue heron
snowy egret
tricolored heron
cattle egret
turkey vulture
osprey
sharp shinned hawk
Common black hawk
American kestral
Sora
Common moorhen
American Coot
spotted sandpiper
rock pigeon
White-winged dove
Inca Dove
Mourning dove
Belted kingfisher
Green kingfisher
Golden fronted Woodpecker
Black phoebe
Eastern Phoebe
Vermillion flycatcher
Great kiskadee
Couch's kingbird
meadowlark
barn swallow
common yellowthroat
boat tailed grackle
oriole (I don't remember which one - Audubon's I think)


Other people saw:
blue winged teal
caspian tern
Cooper's hawk
Red shoulder hawk
ladderback woodpecker
white-eyed vireo (heard)
green jay
orange crowned warbler


Quinta Mazatland I saw
gray hawk
black catbird
long billed thrasher
buff bellied hummingbird
house sparrow
chachalaca


Other people saw:
cactus wren
house wren
blackcrested titmouse
ruby crowned kinglet
olive sparrow
indigo bunting
redwing blackbird



While riding the bus we saw:
white pelican
burrowing owl

I don't think I've gotten all 70 species on this list. But for me there were several species I had not seen before:
the sora, the vermillion flycatcher, buff breasted hummingbird, long billed thrasher, the gray hawk.

The most exciting bird was the common black hawk which is usually found much farther south. Our leaders were very excited to see this one. I posted more photos of the black hawk on my website, Mary Ann's View.