Birds on the drive down to the Rio Grande

The Rio Grande adventure starting by driving over to the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Reserve, about an hour west of Houston. We saw these Northern Pintails along the road. I learned many things on the trip - first is that birds seldom look too much like the ones in the field guides. This is a 2nd year white-tailed hawk, here its wings are covering the tail.

Unfortunately in the winter the predators prey on the seriously endangered prairie chickens, so the chickens were hiding!

They try to put spikes in the fence posts to prevent the hawks from hunting there, but this white-tailed hawk found a perch anyway.

This is tricky to id, but I think it is a Vesper Sparrow because of the white on the tail.

I am sure this one is a Savannah Sparrow with the yellow eyebrow.

Suzy took this one for me out the window - a glossy ibis!

We saw the bisons and decided to stay in the car :) Here are some cattle egrets doing their thing!

Just in case you were wondering why it is called a White-Tailed Hawk....

This is also a young White-tailed hawk!

American Kestrels really are a brightly colored bird, this one was scoping out a city park.

I remember being tired of driving at this point, wondering what the next day would bring, and if we would find any of the birds we were hoping for....