No Bueno

I left Houston at 7 am headed for Big Bend National Park. The idea was to look for a White-eyed Hummingbird that was reported the week before near Boot Springs. I was chaining this trip on to the Davis Mountains Preserve open weekend. Since I was going to do a lot of camping I decided to stay in the Chisos Mountain Lodge and get a solid night’s sleep before leaving at first light for Boot Springs.

The Chisos Mountains were as green as I’ve ever seen them. I had about 3 hours before sunset so I decided to bird Pine Canyon. I headed down the Glenn Springs road and it was in great shape. A couple of miles down I turned on to the Pine Canyon Road and it was also in good shape. I soon passed the PC1 campsite and had about 2.5 miles to the trail head. Right before PC2 I found a steep slope with some large holes near the top but they weren’t very deep. Without a thought, I started up and near the top I started to slip.

I backed down and put it in low gear and tried again. Still I slipped. I back down and got a running start. Nope, I wasn’t going to make it up this hill. I just need about 2 more feet too. No Bueno.
No choice and backed down. I had to back about a quarter of a mile to PC1 before I could turn around. Disappointed I headed for Dugout Wells.

At Dugout Wells I got out and could see a fair number of birds moving about. As I was gearing up I heard footsteps. About a half dozen javalina came out of the desert and headed down to the wells. I decided to give them plenty of room and bird the outside edge until they moved on. I pished and a thrasher popped up. I took a second look at what I assumed was going to be a Curve-billed Thrasher. No, it was a Crissal Thrasher. I flashed back to November of 1995 on my first trip to Big Bend National Park when I got my life Crissal Thrasher maybe a dozen steps from here. Wow almost 22 years ago. I think this is the first time I’ve had a Crissal here since then too.

I walked around the far end of the wells pishing and a small gray bird flew into a bush right in front of me. Elf Owl! I honestly don’t think I’ve ever had as good a look at one. I tallied 15 species in about 30 minutes and decided to call it a day. Up early it will be a full day of birding!

Mexican Jay

Up early I headed up the trail as soon as it was light enough to see. What a difference not hiking with a 45 pound pack, this was easy going compared to my last trip where I camped up this trail. Lots of wildflowers. Birds were the usual suspects, Mexican Jays and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers where everywhere. I took longer than expected birding my way through Juniper Flats and Boulder Meadow, but by 8:20 I was starting up the switchback 1.3 miles down the trail and 600 feet higher than I started at.

There are 21 switchbacks over a mile and a half where you climb about 1000 feet to the top of the Pinnacles. It took me a little less than two hours to make it to the top. Not too bad, I made it up 1600 feet and three miles in less than 3 hours.

Right at the top I heard my first Broad-tailed Hummingbird trill. Almost as soon as I got up the Pinnacles I stopped seeing Black-chinned and started seeing Broad-tailed Hummingbirds. I hurried on to Boot Springs to find this Whited-eared Hummingbird.

Hummingbirds became more numerous along the Boot Springs Trail. At one point I had a really green backed selaphorous hummingbird that I counted as an Allen's Hummingbird. I was up to 4 hummingbird species

I made it to the springs itself feeling good. I was walking across a flat area, just a little fine gravel under my feet when I heard a pop and felt a sharp pain from my knee and went down. I thought to myself "crap that hurt a lot". then I thought "crap, I'm 4.5 miles from the car". No Bueno.

I limped my way to the White-eared Hummingbird spot and found a nice rock to eat my lunch on and rest my knee. I had been there about 30 minutes when i started to hear voices, weird voices, coming from the direction of the south rim on the trail. A few minutes later a 20 something woman by herself appears and was really embarrassed. She had been camping and was heading down and was talking loudly in weird accents she explained to scare mountain lions. I replied in my best over done French accent "Oui! zee Mountain Lion particularly diz like the taste of zee Freeencch!" She grinned and headed down the trail.

I hung out at the spot as long as I could, no luck, I started down the hill early since I figured it was going to take a long time to get down. Back at the spot of my injury a pair of Blue-throated Hummingbirds dueled for my fifth hummingbird species of the day.

My knee was really hurting and I found a decent walking stick in the stream bed and trimmed the end a little. I don't like breaking the rules on collecting but figured under the circumstances I was making a minimal impact.

I can usually make the trip down in about two hours, this time it took over 4 hours. Surprisingly it was the passage through the Juniper Flats that hurt the worst.

In Alpine I found some compression tape and wrapped my knee well and that helped a lot.

The next morning I headed to the the Nature Conservancy's Davis Mountains Preserve hoping to relocated a Buff-breasted Flycatcher that was reported a month earlier. After finding a route that didn't pass through the high water in the creek I made it to the site and spent an extended time there looking with no luck. No Bueno.

There were no uncommon birds there at the time. I decided the next morning to head for Dog Canyon at the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. 2.5 hours later I got as far as the turn off near Carlsbad NM and found the road to Dog Canyon closed due to a wash out. No Bueno. 

I headed back to Frijole Ranch to try my luck. It was pretty slow around the ranch house and I decided to try the Smith Springs Trail. Slow going on the trail with my bad knee. Almost to the springs I found a female Lazuli Bunting for Big Year Bird 479. I was getting pretty worried about that bird and felt relieved to get something for this trip. 

Diamond-backed Rattlesnake

I needed to get off my knee for a bit and I headed back before making it to the springs proper. I sit for a bit catching up on my liquids. I start up the draw working my way slowly up hill. There are birds around. I keep working further and further up the hill and draw. I'm so far back I can now see into Bear Canyon a bit. Finally I hear something. Across the draw are a pair of Juniper Titmice for Big Year Bird 480. Whew I think I made six tries for this bird this year.

Heading back to the car, I'm literally only about 10 feet from the car and there is a rattlesnake in the path. Mind you I've been walking about prime rattlesnake county for the last several hours and I find one in the parking lot! I walk around it and head for Fort Stockton to cool off. Oh and rest my knee.