August - it's not quiet here!

Much to my surprise, the blog has been pretty quiet for August. A closer look reveals that we've been up to our ears in interesting stuff in the meantime! *

August 11th surfaced with a really lovely blog post by the Kaufman team; Kenn and Kim have such an eloquent way of describing the region and their time here... ah, we may be biased but it's still a great honor!

So, a few of the birds definitely present around town this month, starting with heard-only, flyover Upland Sandpipers on a daily basis...

August 11th:
1 Black-billed Cuckoo Coccyzus erythropthalmus
Cuckoo with dark bill, buffy chin, white breast/belly, buffy vent, slaty crown/nape, rusty brown back/wings, under tail was uniform buffy gray ALL OVER, save very, very fine white edging on the tips of the tailfeathers. (no photos, gah!)

August 12:
Black-throated Green Warbler (Gage Hotel)
Dickcissel (Gage Hotel)

August 13:
Painted Bunting (yard)
Yellow Warbler (yard)
Zone-tailed Hawk (yard)
Peregrine Falcon  (Post Park)

August 15:
Swainson's Hawk - dark morph (ok, just a few miles south of Imperial, but still in the Trans-Pecos and a slight chance that it's the bird that was on Post Road earlier in the year!)

August 16:
Canyon Wren - possibly the same bird that had been around in early August (starting 30 July - yard)

August 17:
Orange-crowned Warbler (yard)

*  ...and, unfortunately, things will likely be quiet for a while still, due to a last minute CA bird survey gig for Matt. But it's not for lack of good local birding!

Also, during the month, some 'new' blog posts have been added to the archives - crossposted from our informal blog, Seetrail, things relevant to the scope of this blog have been introduced. Things like videos! Aplomado Falcons! Things that deserve more than one exclamation mark! Right now only the July 2010 archives are fully up to date, but we'll be adding more over time; this blog didn't exist in its current form until October of 2010, so there's still a bit to add.