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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

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  1. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    I'm heading there in August if you have any tips!
  2. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    #526- Thick-billed (formerly McCown's) longspur. Sweet first lifer of 2024, as this was a nemesis bird and one of only two "expected" birds in central Texas that is missing from my life list. Birding barren ag fields in the winter isn't my favorite thing to do, but the longspurs made my previous...
  3. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Eurasian wigeon in central Texas, #525. Seen through a scope at probably 1/2 km, so not the most satisfying view. I'll take any lifer within a couple hours of my house at this point, though! This male was kind enough to return for at least a 2nd winter after I dipped on him last year.
  4. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    I heard about this bird on the American birding association podcast, so it must be a big deal.
  5. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Successfully chased #524 hermit warbler, the first record for Travis County, Texas. Brief, not super satisfying views of an immature at the local migrant trap, but a lifer nonetheless, and I always love adding a new warbler.
  6. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    #523- Prairie falcon I snuck out with the baby before the long drive back to Texas and headed to Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. A pair of immature falcons peered down from the red rocks. 4 lifers for the trip!
  7. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    521- Green-tailed towhee 522- Brewer's sparrow Seen while sneaking in a hike before sundown after making it to more central, mountainous Colorado. Ironically, all 3 new lifers I've seen on this trip were reported as rarities in the last couple years at a park I worked at back home, about 1500...
  8. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    #520- Virginia's warbler After a sleepless 13-hour overnight drive, I threw the 15 month-old in our new hiking baby backpack while the wife recovered. Despite impatient kicks and eyes that didn't want to stay open, I was able to nab my 39th US parulidae species. Still have some work to do out...
  9. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Didn't expect two lifers in a week, but when a yellow-green vireo showed up 75 miles from home, I happily woke up at 5 AM to chase it. It turned out to be one of those stress-free chases, with another birder on it when I arrived, as it sang constantly from the precise coordinates it was found at...
  10. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    #518, black-billed cuckoo! Finally!!!! Nemesis bird that was pretty much my last "expected" spring migrant passerine for the eastern half of Texas. I decided on a whim to take a quick loop through a small stretch of woods that's typically very quiet. There was a raucous elementary school field...
  11. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    I finally tracked down a longspur, my nemesis genus! Great looks at a female type chestnut-collared longspur, quite rare for Travis County in central Texas. It had been reported the last 2 days, but I had given up on it and started my walk back to the car when I saw it scurrying along the ground...
  12. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    I just got back from the Yucatan for a family vacation, but squeezed in my first ever guided tour and ended up with 42 lifers on the tour, in addition to 10 others I found on my own at our resort. This was my first international birding experience, outside of relatively low-diversity USVI, so...
  13. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    After my longest ever dry spell of over 6 months (a blazing hot Texas summer and new baby may have had something to do with it), I had one of my rarest personal finds in a central TX white-winged scoter for #465. Counting the days to a Mexico trip next month, where I've negotiated a half-day to...
  14. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    White wagtail (#386) and ringed kingfisher (#387), both seen at Roy Guerrero Park in Austin, Texas within 60 seconds of each other. One bird at the extreme north of its range and the other well of course from where it belongs, but very cool to see them together. The wagtail has been very...
  15. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Black-throated blue warbler that had been frequenting the suet feeders of a nice Dallas homeowner's side yard for the past 3 weeks. #385, all ABA.
  16. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    #384- Long-eared owl. Perched along the Trinity River near downtown Dallas and seen by dozens before I caught up to it on its 6th (and final) day seen. Among the highlights for the year
  17. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    #382, greater scaup. Almost didn't pull my scope out because it was freezing, but these two struck me as quite possibly not the more common lesser scaup.
  18. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    #381(all new ABA area)- Clay colored sparrow, which pretty much wraps up all the sparrows I can expect to find in my region
  19. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    I was able to squeeze in a very small amount of birding on a trip up to Colorado for a wedding. On the way back to CO Springs on the Ptarmigan Lake Trail along Cottonwood Pass, I was able to get ABA #'s... 379) American three-toed woodpecker 380) Canada Jay It's not listed as a hotspot on...
  20. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Black-capped vireo and zone-tailed hawk in Colorado Bend State Park. It required a 4 am wakeup and 4 hours of hiking in eventual 90+ degree weather, but spending time finding cool birds in the Texas hill country is always worth it. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
  21. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Grasshopper sparrow in SW Tarrant county while searching (finally successfully on attempt #3) for my county northern bobwhite. Texas bird #320
  22. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    I spotted 9 lifers on my trip to California. Black phoebe and ring-necked pheasant at a local park in Sacramento. 3-day backpacking trip to Lassen Volcanic NP netted me western wood peewee, western tanager, common merganser, white-headed woodpecker, red-breasted sapsucker, black-backed...
  23. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Woke up at 4 am yesterday to make the 3-hour drive down to Balcones NWR in the Texas hill country, where my targets were the black-capped vireo and golden-cheeked warbler, the latter of which is the only bird to breed exclusively in my gigantic state of Texas. I found 4 GCWA, including 2...
  24. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Prothonotary warbler was #364 for me, at the Fort Worth Nature Center. Uncommon in Tarrant County, but a few seem to reliably breed at this particular location. I listened to one song off and on for about an hour before he finally showed himself.
  25. hookem2010

    Your Most Recent "Life" Bird

    Hiking in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge produced lifers in canyon wren and great views of rufous crowned sparrow (ABA #s 357, 358). Its about time for me to invest in a quality camera to start documenting. The RCS was 5 feet away, just begging to be photographed.
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