Life List in Pictures: Chapter 1.
March 2021 at King Ranch (Kingsville, Texas).
On our first major birding adventure, we hired a guide at the huge, Rhode Island-sized King Ranch in south Texas just a hop from the border. Our guide (bless you Tom!) treated us like royalty, even though he has more bird knowledge in his pinkie than I will ever hope to attain in the rest of my years. I think he was nervous when we showed up, wondering if my 12 year old sidekick was going to pre-teen complain about her cell phone reception out in the wild (there is no reception). Little did he know that not only does that 12 year old not have a phone (yet) but she would also eventually save the birding day! More on that later.
As I mentioned in the Introduction, I recognize our photography tools need upgrading and my talent is lacking. These first few chapters will be tough for you real birders and photogs. There is a plan for this remedy. It requires a small fortune and necessitates a steep learning curve, but have faith! Bear with me! We did not get clear snaps of all these birds unfortunately, but we caught more than just a few. Tom could identify all the Texas birds by their calls, completely impressive. He made sure we kept our eBird app list up to date for this adventure as we tracked through the Norias division of the ranch for over 11 hours. As we continue our outdoors adventures, we will backtrack and…
