Spring Chirp Birding Festival 4/9-13/2025

April 9th-13th, 2025

We have been looking into this festival for a couple years now, not seriously at first. I am not sure we had thought of traveling for birding very seriously up until know. This year it fell on one of my flex Friday’s and we decided to just make it happen. We heard about it initially from our favorite bird nerds, Hannah and Erik, who spoke about it on a couple of their podcasts https://www.gobirdingpodcast.com/. This festival sounded like our speed; it’s described as a “boutique” birding festival because they keep the number of participants small (around 100) in lieu of the 700-800 the Rio Grande Valley Birding festival in the fall gets.

Kristen’s brain going into this: We fly to Texas, we sign up for some bird trips, we get some lifers, hang out with some likeminded people, get some cool photos, we fly home. Pretty simple, and all in all it really was.

First, I looked at flights, they were not great. The choices were fly into McAllen or Harlingen, Texas. Both were expensive and not the best times? I ended up picking Harlingen because the flight on Sunday got us back at 5:15 pm so we’d have some breathing room before work on Monday. Of course, after I booked the flights, I got an e-mail noting that our flight time was changed and we wouldn’t be getting in until 7:15 pm, so much for my planning… Anyways, worry about work Monday later. Ross deals with rental cars, he does it through Costco and ended up being super affordable for our time there. The festival also had a discount code for the Holiday Inn Express in Weslaco. I did not find out until we got there that this was the headquarters for the festival, and everyone stayed there or met there in the mornings for the shuttle pickups.

With the logistics done, it was just a waiting game. The week before our flight came up really quick! April is a great time after the winter work grind to get out and take a break. I e-mailed Hannah and asked her a few questions; how’s the weather, anything extra to bring, tip tricks… Those sort of things. She e-mailed me back my worst nightmare – hot, mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks. I thought this would be nice spring weather, not 90 degree weather, surprisingly Ross didn’t mention it either. I ended up quickly buying a couple pairs of light long pants, I’m really disappointed in the outdoor pant industry for women, everything is form fitting and when I’m sweating that is not what I want. I ended up finding a pair of Mountain Hardwear baggy pants (not that I’m ever promoting, but these worked great).

Packing and first travel day – We packed pretty light for this, just kidding I don’t know how to pack light. I checked a larger bag so that Ross and I could put larger items in the bag, I brought 3 pairs of pants/shorts/hooded sun shirts/t-shirts and a couple pairs of pants/hats/extra smaller backpack/bug dope and sunscreen. We both packed our camera equipment in the carry ons with the tripod in the check on bag. We pretty much always drive to Seattle from Bellingham and leave the car in a lot which ends up being anywhere from $8-16 a night, one of these days we’ll just fly out of Bellingham because the price will be right. We had a great flight set up on the way there, 7:20 am out of Seattle and into Austin, TX (liked this airport a lot) and 3:30 pm departure to Harlingen, TX. We arrived in the smaller airport and got our car so quickly, super easy logistically. Our hotel was about 40 minutes away from the airport and the check-in for the festival ended at 6 PM. We got to the Holiday Inn Express Harlingen and it was exactly how you would expect that type of hotel to be, perfectly fine, with a pool!

So here we go! First festival experience! I was so nervous, I am not good walking into a room of not too many people where I’ve never been before and exhausted. Ross did better than I did, he is surprisingly chill sometimes when I expect him not to be. The festival was set up in the conference room where they had a table where you could pick up your name tag and goodie bag and meet the director, Holly! What a treat, she is so kind and enthusiastic about everything she also seemed to have the twinge of crazy that every person heading an event like this needs to have. She reminded us of the times on the handout for the trips was what times the vans would be leaving, not when to meet. We quickly spotted Hannah and Erik and said hi briefly as they were talking with a group of other people, turns out we were both trying to guess what time the other pair was going to be arriving based on our Instagram stories. Ross and I grabbed some food and as I am sitting and trying to eat and not be awkward, we talk a little bit about what we want to do this evening, we’re in a place with brand new birds and such little time! Luckily, Hannah decided for us and asked if we wanted to go check out the Elf Owl. The Elf Owl is religiously in the same telephone pole at pretty much the same time every night at Bensen-Rio Grande Valley State Park. We packed up our cameras and drove the 38 minutes to the park excited to see the Blue Jay’s and whatever else! We arrived and Isdidro (one of the guides) asked us if we wanted bug spray, and the immediate answer was yes. The mosquitoes were probably the worst I’d ever seen or remember in my life. I can think of many two other possibly worst times, working in the summer up in Alpine on an oil rig or rolling up to the cabin at Nancy Lake. This area of Texas had received massive amounts of flooding due to rain a couple weeks ago which led to great mosquito breeding, perfect timing for the festival….. I don’t do mosquitoes, they are extremely annoying to me and I seem to get single out more than other people. We walked over and posted up with the tripods and scopes and cameras pointed out the Elf Owl burrow. But the mosquitoes were so bad that there was no standing still, you would go to swat one off your face and 50 would ping off your arms in the meantime. The Elf Owl showed its tiny little head at 8:01 PM I tried to take a few photos, but it was just dark enough that I wasn’t able to get anything great without a tripod and I couldn’t stand remotely still enough. No surprise but we did not stay long, we booked it back to the car to escape the swarm. One of our friends Hannah told us later that the price you pay for an Elf Owl is 1 million mosquitos, and we definitely paid that price.

Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park ebird list

Day 1 Starr County Exploration 4/10/2025

This was our earliest wake up and longest drive. We left at 5:30 AM and our first stop was Santa Margarita Ranch. On our drive over we were joking about trying to see 100 Scissor-tailed Flycatchers today, they were on all the power lines! We pulled up and parked right next to the literal boarder gate, our guide had the code and we went right through! Pretty wild with everything happening these days. It was fairly cool and I still had on my sweatshirt as we walked in, our checklist started at 7:47 AM. One of the first birds that we saw was a duck that flew right over, it was Muscovy Duck and one that counts for a list! This is one of the only areas in the US that a Muscovy Duck can be counted towards an ebird list based on most of them being released birds and not native. Another notable bird on the way in was a Black-throated Sparrow, now my favorite looking Sparrow. As we walked to the overlook, we noted some common species such as Orioles, blackbirds, NOCR, etc. The overlook was great for a large number of species of birds but not great for photos, our guides had set up scopes. We had different types of Herons, Kingfishers, Egrets, Vultures, Hawks, etc.

We stayed there for an hour or so and headed back to the vans. Our next stop in the ranch was a spot that Scaled Quail frequent because the landowner feeds them. Of course, they weren’t there, it’s always super irrigating when the guides say something is going to be there for sure and it’s not. I feel like people who see certain birds everyday forgot how special they are to people visiting. Hoping back in the van, we drove down to where we were going to walk along the river. First step out of the van was instant swarm of mosquitoes (F me!), I had forgotten about them because the breeze up top kept them down. I deeted everything, EVERYTHING! We took off down the road that turned into a trail to go find the Brown Jays. They were right where they normally were and I quickly tried to get a picture, I didn’t realize how special these birds were here otherwise I would have spent more time. I ended up with one okay one, at least. Normally, the guides feed the Jays, and we sit and watch them for a bit while we eat lunch, today the bugs were so horrible that we kept moving. The next target species was the nesting Rose-throated Becards. Walking there I was near tears; I kept swinging my arms and just flailing to ward off the bugs. I could see them on Ross’s shoulders, like 50 perched. He didn’t seem to care but the next day he said that he had a “rash” and I told him those were mosquito bites. Luckly, we saw both the male and female RTBE and the nest, got a horrible photo. One other notable ABA rarity was the Morelet’s Seedeater, it was calling and calling and finally we saw it fly away. After that was the mad dash back to the vans and the drive back to the hotel. It ended up being a 70+ species day, good introduction to Texas birds downsides were the heat and the mosquitoes.

The trips are planned out to leave early in the morning and get back to the hotel in the early-mid afternoon, which is great for getting in the AC, naps, and pool. Every evening, we took the vans about 15 minutes away to the Valley Nature Center where there was catered food from different restaurants in the area (tonight was BBQ and probably my favorite meal of the trip) and a presentation by a chosen person to talk about their master’s thesis, their work with birds or whatever any other relevant topic.

Right after dinner we signed up for the night owl walk at Estero Llano Grande State Park. This was fun, I wish there was more emphasis on birding. There was a really large group that went, and I felt like there was a lot of standing around and chatting. I wanted to see the owls! Unfortunately, there were no owls, Ross and I did see something fly that looked owlish but nobody else was paying attention. The peaks of this little outing were the black light and the scorpions and also the Common Pauraque. The COPA are known to come out on the trails here at night, there is one that frequents a certain area during the day but since the flooding and apparently harassment it isn’t as reliable. One other highlight was the Least Grebe in the Ibis Pond and a White-tailed Kite.

Santa Margarita Ranch Checklist

Valley Nature Center Checklist

Estero Llano Grande State Park Checklist (night walk)

Day 2 King Ranch 3/11/2025

Admittedly, I didn’t do too much research on these trips. I read the descriptions, consulted with Ross, asked our friends…. Most of the time I wasn’t quite sure what we were going to be doing that day. I didn’t realize that King Ranch was a giant ass ranch, and we would basically be doing van birding. I wanted to get a picture of a Greater Roadrunner and we saw lots, but nobody else cared about them! I wanted to hop out the van and take pictures! Ugh anyways, this was a great day and I’m glad we did it but it was also semi frustrating.

We drove in our vans to King Ranch and met our escort and bird guide, she was great! We immediately started off on the road and saw lots from the van windows…. One of the birders in our van talked so much about seeing Upland Sandpipers that I’m pretty sure he manifested them. We did stop for these, but nobody would move their ass to get out, I almost started hopping out the back. So, shitty picture that I don’t even know if I kept. From here we stopped at a bathroom/barn/cowboy who knows what and birded the area for a while. This stop was actually great birding; we saw Lark Sparrows, Vermilion Flycatchers, Kingbirds, and on the way back an Indigo Bunting.

Next stop was the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. I feel like this was the target bird for the day for most. For me, I just wanted to see as many birds as possible. The area we stopped was a treed area in the openness of the ranch. The owl is always typically here, and it still took our guide 10-15 minutes to find it, so well hidden! Everyone got to see, and everyone got great butt pictures and some of us snuck around the side to get a front facing picture. At this point, I’m getting hot. The festival did provide sunscreen and bug spray in the vans so we could re-up whenever.

The next drive was the longest drive was out to the cowboy house? Here we had our lunch and tried to hunt down some of the birds chirping in the area. One of the guides brought to our attention that he had a tick crawling on his pants, up until this point I hadn’t been too worried, but I really started now. The though of them grosses me out, I tucked my pants into my socks from the recommendation from a fellow birder. My pants were a pretty light color, so I was able to see them if they started crawling on me. In this area we were able to find a Tropical Parula, I ended up getting a pretty decent picture right away, so I started looking for other birds. There were some SUTA and VEFL as well as some hummingbirds hanging around. Mostly, I was concerned about ticks. When we loaded up back in the van the youngest kid with us had sweatpants full of them, I think they said they counted 40 that they picked off. I ended up having some on my pants but never got any, Ross liked to go off-roading in the grass and he ended up having at least 4 from the whole trip (one he took back on his calf to Washington).

For how great this trip was with all of the amazing birds we saw and high number of species, I do wish that there was more out of the van birding opportunities. There was a lot of car time, but it was cool being on the ranch and seeing real cowboys and cows and horses and wild turkeys. I also wish that the guides split up the ebird reports for each stop that we did, we ended up with one big list which I think is an ebird faux pas.

King Ranch eBird list

Flickr Day 2

Day 3 Weslaco 3/12/2025

The third days field trip we chose was to go to different birding spots in Weslaco. We wanted to tour the area, I think knowing what I know how I would have liked to go to McAllen (there is always next time!). We started off at Estero Llano Grande State Park. This park has a cool backstory of being a prior RV park converted to State Park, when they converted it, the State gave the owners of the lots until basically, they died to stay on the land and then it was ceded to the park. It would be pretty amazing to wake up here with the birds and wildlife every morning! At this point the only people who get to stay overnight are the Rangers.

The Park starts off with the “tropical zone” consisting of trees and lots of different times of flowing plants. We were hoping for more Warblers this trip, but we didn’t see many because it was too early in the year; BAWW, NAWA this morning. Ross was on a Buff-bellied Hummingbird mission which lasted until the very last second of the last day…. Anyways, we walked towards the shuffleboard court and tried to suss out the Eastern Screech Owl that has been being reported but we couldn’t find it. Around 8 AM the park rangers put food out at the feeding stations which some have blinds you can sit behind and watch. This was great opportunities for pictures of GRJA, WWDO, WTDO, PLCH, BCTI, NOCA, etc.

Next was the stop at the parks main entrance, store, and the ibis pond. In the ibis pond we found a Sora who kept poking its head out and posing for pictures, this was really exciting for a chance to get one! Recently there had be a report of a Least Bittern at the next pond and that was our next stop. Ross claimed that he saw it briefly but nobody else did, unfortunately. Right around this area is where the once reliable Pauraque was supposed to be, but again we didn’t see it. I found out later that a different group came across it but kept flushing it, so nobody really had great looks. Super bummer because goat suckers are cool! I gotta say at this point with all the striking out, I was getting bummed. I also felt that the group was kind of over birding, and the guides really weren’t into IDing things anymore. My feet were also starting to really hurt, and it was hot. We did end up making out to the drainage ditches where other groups had seen a Groove-bill Ani but we didn’t have any luck. There were some shorebirds and peeps in the water that nobody thought to bring a scope (eye roll) so we couldn’t fully identify them. Ross and I were able to identify BNST, LBCU, STSA, LESA for our Texas list.

Last stop for the festival was the Frontera Audubon Center. Pretty small list here as it was mid-day (the witching hour). We lucked out and saw a Chuck-Will’s-Widow right by the start of the trails. It flushed and flew back into the trees but by the time we came back it was sitting where we all got great looks. We all were able to get pictures through the gate, so they’re not stellar but, what a cool bird! The goat sucker fascination was really started on this trip. The group also saw a Red-crowned Amazon (there is also one that hangs out at the Valley Nature Center).

The last night’s dinner was catered by Nana’s Taqueria which is apparently the favorite for everyone in the festival, and there was a giant vat of margaritas. We had our favorite bird nerds from Cannon Beach sit with us which was super exciting! John Yochum did the presentation tonight on other things to see in Texas besides birds like butterflies and different types of flora. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but he is basically a local legend in the birding community, and he also leads bird walks at Estero in the mornings.

Estero Llano Grande eBird list

Frontera Audubon Center eBird list

Flickr photos day 3

Day 4 Bonus Bird Morning 3/13/2025

Ross and I debated heavily on what we were going to do the morning before our flight. There was a Flame-colored Tanager that has been hanging around out towards South Padre Island. We also wanted to see some more variety of species which also could have been South Padre Island. Kelly, with the ABA, text me an essay on a plan for getting up early and heading that direction (which I will keep until we go back!). In the end we decided to just go back to Estero. The night before Ross talked to one of the guides and got better information on where the Eastern Screech Owl was hiding out and Ross still needed to see his Buff-bellied Hummingbird. Plus, the bird blinds are great for taking photos, and I really wanted a better Green Jay and Titmouse. I’m not sure if I regret not going out to the island or not, I feel like if I was by myself, I would have made the effort.

Back at Estero we did find the Screech Owl. Honestly, it was probably there the day before too, but nobody knew exactly where to look for it. We got more photos and about the same number of species as the day before and I got an Eastern Screech Owl sweatshirt. All in all it was a good last day outing and not super stressful, as usual I was starting to get the going back to work scaries and my mood always craps out when that happens.

The Harlingen airport was a dream. So cute, so tiny, so easy. We saw some people we knew from our trip and chatted with them a bit. One of the ladies asked me for some pictures when I got home, I tried to send them, but the e-mail bounced it back! I swear, I tried! The Dallas airport sucks for bathrooms, I think that’s about it for the trip!

Estero Llano Grande eBird list

Conclusion Thoughts

We will be doing this again. I know that I mentioned some irritation but that all comes with a new festival and learning how things work. Next time we go here we are going to plan on setting up some days with a guide so we can really hone in on our targets. I loved the uniqueness of this festival with it being such a small number of people and everyone staying at the same hotel. The flights over were really expensive with not a lot of options for times. Now that I know how the trips work and the areas, I would be able to pick trip options better. We definitely missed out on not going to a coastal or water heavy location. What I brought to wear and the gear and camera equipment worked out perfectly, I didn’t think there was anything I missed majorly. I think for a similar trip next year we are going to try for SE Arizonsa! (Of course, Ross wants to go back to Texas like immediately and has blinders for other areas, lol).