"Mangrove" Warbler
This is a distinctive race of the Yellow Warbler which occasionally wanders into south Texas. It is common over parts of coastal Mexico. This particular shot was the only the 2nd documented record for Texas as I recall. This sub-species is now breeding in some areas near Port Isabel, Texas. This is the subspecies: Setophaga petechia oraria

OK, here is a set of cruddy enough photos to challenge anyone, but it is an important record in the bird history of rarities in the U.S.

If anyone happens to have the new National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds, 6th Edition, if you look at page 534 you will see Crane Hawk listed as one of the "accidentals" which is not treated in the regular species accounts of that book. This record is based on a bird which visited Santa Ana N.W.R. in south Texas from 20 Dec 1987 until 9 April 1988. I was able to see this bird on 2 January 1988 and got some poor quality photos in the rain and dark, very overcast and drizzly skies. Somewhere, others got some better photos which I have seen, but in the 25 years since I have lost track of who had other shots. The record is accepted by the ABA (American Birding Association), the AOU (American Ornithologists Union) and the Texas Bird Records Committee (TBRC). The TBRC web page has two of these same shots at:

http://www.texasbirdimages.com/home/region-7/crane-hawk---region-7

and there is an account of the bird on the Texas Ornithological Society "Handbook of Texas Birds" web site at:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Zvj31yQwNoAC&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=crane+hawk+in+texas&source=bl&ots=zQ_RFW9n4u&sig=oc6GtbHEvaWVb97ulxQEGwLXDU8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=A-6KUPq4LZSBrQGsvYDYDA&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=crane%20hawk%20in%20texas&f=false

This hawk, essentially a tropical species (its normal range is as far north as central Tamaulipas, Mexico where I have seen it on a few occasions), has quite long, reddish legs, a small head and a long tail with several white bands. It has paddle-shaped wings, with white crescents on the base of the primaries (which are not visible in any of the photos I have). The long legs are used to reach into crevices in dead trees to catch bats and other prey items. Anyway, the photos, in combination, allow for a positive ID for those familiar with the species, but I fully admit they are sorry photos. It was a long time ago, on grainy film and a dark day and the shots were the best I could do at the time with the equipment I had. The bird was quite skittish and very few people got any shots at all, even though the bird was seen by hundreds of folks during the three months it remained at Santa Ana. Sometimes the bird was not seen for many days in a row, but on other occasions it was seen easily. Since this remains the only U.S. record of the species, I thought I would post the shots here as a general interest item for raptor enthusiasts.

This was an extremely rare sighting for Squamish first spotted by Wally Fletcher during the Squamish Estuary Monthly Bird Census. This seal was first sighted in Puget Sound near Seattle Washington earlier in the year then later in Steveston British Columbia where it was tagged on its flipper ( B310 ). It was observed swimming and sunning itself on a wharf at the end of Cattermole Slough near downtown Squamish only for only one day then disappeared. Judging by its normal habitat it was a long way out of range which is the Bering Sea. I have good video of the seal ( You-Tube video https://youtu.be/QO8osHlLzh0 ) if that will help with identification.

Game camera image I saw a red fox here about 30 years ago. but have never seen one since. Apparently the buck has never seen one either. A sequence of pics show the buck walking up to the fence to get a better look.

The only other record I can find for platirhinos in Kenedy County is a specimen collected in 1978, which ended up the the KU collection. The locality description just says "Padre Island." If I had realized that at the time, I would probably have taken the specimen.

We caught 2 hognose snakes in this trap.

1 25July2002

2 04Oct2002

We caught 4 that year.

From slides