Okay folks! Today was our official first day of field trips and it was a blast. I co-led the "Canoe the Rio Grande," with Kim Eckert and a fantastic group of fourteen talkative participants. We loaded up six canoes at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and set our ships sail! Here we are in the photo above putting in at around 8:30 am with metal paddles in hand. We heard the river was really low with the current drought, so we thought we would be knee-deep in mud, but the rarely-used ramp was just enough for us and we managed to stay dry.
Here we are on my canoe with USA on the left and Mexico on the right as we float downstream for about four miles of tropical paradise. Green, Ringed, and Belted Kingfishers were all in attendance with the ladder being seen the least. We stumbled onto a group of Black-Crowned Night-Herons with one juvenile Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron identified by our fearless leader, Kim Eckert. Spotted and Solitary Sandpipers dotted the banks peeping and flying all over the place keeping us busy when we had a lull in the birding. We had a group of Turkey Vultures cruise by and I made sure to check for their near twin, the Zone-tailed Hawk. They are incredibly similar, but Zonies have a striped, long tail and dark wings. They fly the same way with that slight dihedral, though! Lots of stuff on the river and we managed to get a workout in as well with the paddling.
For an optics rep the work is never finished with the field trip, of course. Back at the show the exhibitor area was buzzing with birders shopping for optics, jewelry, and some whom were contemplating their next major international destination with the plethora of tour companies represented. The photo above shows Jonathon Wood and The Raptor Project entertaining a good crowd of people. His project re-invigorates injured birds to educate all ages about the raptors of the world. Nikon proudly sponsors The Raptor Project and we couldn't be more proud of Jonathon's accomplishments! I wanted to make sure to give you all a recap of the day quickly. I am off to dinner and the some sleep for another 4:45 wake-up call! Thanks for reading and hopefully next time I will have some pictures of birds for you all!
Good Birding!
2 Responses:
I was so glad to read this post - tomorrow my husband and I are taking the Rio Grande Canoe trip - hope the day is as beautiful as today was!
Sounds like an awesome trip that I just might have to try some day!
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