The ‘Find the New Bird’ Tour capped off today in southern Texas with perhaps the best get of the five new lifers: Hooked-billed Kite! We arrived at Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park aware that the morning ‘flyover’ of a dark morph adult hadn’t happened for six days straight, not a good sign. But this morning was a new day, and quickly found out that the day before a photo had been taken by Luciano Guerra at the nearby National Butterfly Center yesterday around 11:00 a.m. (it’s below, and it’s awesome)! A search of the area did not find the bird this morning, so I ended up driving around to areas the bird might be hunting for snails, based information provided by the folks at Bentsen. And sure enough, at around 2:30, about half a mile northwest of the park, saw two adult kites (not a dark morph) flying over an agricultural field and then briefly landing on a tree. Great looks! #697.
