Great Birding in Davis Mountains

We returned from our week stay in Fort Davis on Friday afternoon.  It was probably our best birding trip ever when we look at the numbers.  For the four days we spent there we saw a total of 73 different species, high-lighted by our sighting and photograph of a Montezuma Quail.  It had been very elusive to us as we had missed seeing it on a half dozen previous trips.  This time we visited a friends bird-watch setup at his place high in the Davis Mountains.  We have to thank Stephen Hambright for his hospitality and use of his blinds.

Montezuma Quail

I took about 1,000 images there, along the highways in the area, and at Lake Balmorhea.  It will take me several more days to go through all of them.  I am having day-surgery on my nose tomorrow, so I want to do this post today, Sunday, and show these four photographs.  The rest will have to wait several more days until my next post.  Bythe way, click on any image to see a glorious enlargement.

There were several Black-headed Grosbeaks in abundance in the mountains.

Black-headed Grosbeak

We spent two mornings at Stephen’s place.  I think most of our sightings were there.  Besides the Grosbeaks, we saw a Hepatic Tanager, Summer Tanager, Western Tanager, Say’s Phoebe, Wood Pewees, Scrub-jays, and various others.  I will be showing some of those in future posts.

Say’s Phoebe

On Wednesday evening we traveled out highway 505, a desolate road with no traffic for miles.  We were in search of possibly some bald eagles.  We struck out on those, although we did see a huge Common Black-Hawk.  We did see and photograph some Scaled Quail.  They seemed to be everywhere along the way.

Scaled Quail

Those are all that for now.  I hope to be posting again towards the end of this coming week.  I will have to see how this minor surgery goes tomorrow.

I now will have 12×16 inch prints on hand if any of you want one.  Of course, that goes for any photo that you have seen on any of my posts.  They are 40.00 each, but that includes shipping.  If you live in San Angelo, you pay only 30.00 if I can hand deliver it.  Just contact me at bobzeller@pobox.com. or 325-656-6241.

You can also order limited photos from my FineArtAmerica website at http://1-bob-zeller.pixels.com.

Until my next post in a few days, Happy Birding!!