{"id":2567,"date":"2013-11-13T19:42:13","date_gmt":"2013-11-14T01:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/?p=2567"},"modified":"2013-11-13T19:42:13","modified_gmt":"2013-11-14T01:42:13","slug":"amazon-kingfisher-in-cameron-co-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/2013\/11\/13\/amazon-kingfisher-in-cameron-co-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Kingfisher in Cameron Co., Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having too many irons in the fire kept me from the big search for the Amazon Kingfisher until Tuesday.\u00a0 The green bird showed up last Saturday in a Resaca (oxbow) of the Rio Grande along Highway 100 about 15 miles southeast of Harlingen, Texas.\u00a0 Birders\u00a0attending the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival\u00a0were the first to spot it and now the world knows about our rare Mexican visitor.\u00a0 There have been up to 30 cars parked at that point of the highway for the past 4 days.\u00a0 Fortunately, most of those who\u00a0wanted to see the\u00a0bird got at least a distant view.\u00a0 Rare birds make the south Texas highways look like Yellowstone National Park…when one car stops, they all stop.\u00a0 The sheriff’s office sent officers to keep traffic moving on Saturday.<\/p>\n

I arrived at the site\u00a0about a half hour before sunrise\u00a0yesterday\u00a0and\u00a0got my first look just a few minutes before sunrise.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the throng of birders kept the\u00a0kingfisher alert enough that it didn’t come close.\u00a0 While it was never close enough for a great photo, I did get some documentary shots which I wanted to share with you.\u00a0 It is not\u00a0unusual for rare birds and butterflies to venture into south Texas from Mexico.\u00a0 It just takes a lot of “eyes” to find them.\u00a0\u00a0I’m sure you know\u00a0that these rare, tropical birds\u00a0bring\u00a0many birders,\u00a0photographers and millions of dollars to this area.\u00a0 The Chamber of Commerce\u00a0just smiles when a rare bird alert goes out on the internet.<\/p>\n

Click in the upper, right portion of a photo to make it larger and sharper for viewing.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Amazon Kingfisher searching for prey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Amazon Kingfisher, female, shares a perch with the spiders as she tries to spot unwary fish.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Ebony trees in the background are good camouflage for the Amazon Kingfisher.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Amazon Kingfisher hunting from an ebony tree perch at pond's edge.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I’ll be searching again tomorrow and hoping for better light and a closer perch (for the bird).<\/p>\n

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Larry<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having too many irons in the fire kept me from the big search for the Amazon Kingfisher until Tuesday.\u00a0 The green bird showed up last Saturday in a Resaca (oxbow) of the Rio Grande along Highway 100 about 15 miles southeast of Harlingen, Texas.\u00a0 Birders\u00a0attending the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival\u00a0were the first to spot … Continue reading Amazon Kingfisher in Cameron Co., Texas<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2573,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions\/2573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larryditto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}