Amado WTP

While I stared at my lifer Painted Bunting at Amado Water Treatment Plant I told the gentleman beside me, “Amado is so hit or miss. There can be absolutely nothing here or it can be a gold mind”. He laughed and agreed as we now turned out attention to the Forester’s Tern that was zipping around the water.

I was grinning ear to ear to see this beautiful male Painted Bunting although I wanted to cry a little because it decided to stay on the far side of the pond just out of good picture range.

I accepted this though, a beautiful rainbow of a bird was a joy to see and I felt so terrible that Derik was stuck at work dying to see it. He had considered going for it after work, but instead we decided to attempt to find a Reddish Egret hat popped up a day ago up in the Santa Cruz Flats. I would have gone myself the day before but after monsoons turned the muddy roads into mush I knew my car wouldn’t make it.

So we went off to find an egret that we never could locate although we did get lucky to find a few fledgling Great Horned Owls.

Sitting on the couch after that defeat, past our bed time Derik contemplated going back down to Amado Saturday morning. Once again he had to work so he would have to get up at the butt crack of dawn and he would have a short period of time to hopefully see the bird. I contemplating going with him just because why not but we would have to drive separately ad I had literally been there less tan 12 hours earlier only to see a bird that may or may not be there and a stupid far distance anyway so I decided to pass.

Even this morning as Derik got ready he checked to make sure I didn’t want to go. I contemplated it, complained we had to drive separately and drifted back to sleep. Oh what a dumb decision.

An hour later I texted him to see if he got the bird. He did! Which is awesome. He mentioned that a group of them go the Bunting and he even got semi decent pictures of it. And about 3 minutes later I get a call.

“Brown Pelican!”

WHAT! Just WHAT!? No, here I am getting ready for the day and he is seeing a Brown Pelican! I knew Amado would do this.

Pets feed, clothes on I hoped in the car and sped off. Why does Amado have to be so far away.

Derik kept me up to date. The bird was flying off from Amado so he was heading to Canoa to see if it would land there. Upon arriving there, there was no sight of it.

I was about 15 minutes from Canoa when we decided to head north thinking the bird may go to Kennedy or Columbus. So I flipped a bitch and literally see Derik on the other side of the highway so I was just minutes behind him.

He was cutting it close time wise for work so he would have just a few minutes at Kennedy before he had to take off.

Then a call come in over the Toyota speaker. I answer it.

“It’s over the highway!”

I knew I was just a few minutes behind him but I revved the engine until I was maybe speeding a bit.

“I lost it, no there it is again, look for my truck!”

I could see it pulled over. I pulled in behind him and stared in the direction he told me to.

There it was! A massive bird off in the distance. Thank god I was looking for a pelican because you can’t really confuse that bird with anything!

We took the exit and drove where we had last seen it. Scanning the skies we couldn’t locate it but we were so close to a waterhole so we headed there thinking maybe the pelican would want to head there too.

Well it didn’t. In fact it didn’t head to any of the waterholes in the area. I tried Kennedy, Columbus, Sweetwater and even El Rio which to my surprise didn’t have any water so that was a bust on multiple fronts.

Gosh, it is a bummer to have gotten such a lame sighting after Derik got such an epic one but it was the bird without a doubt. Oh birds, they certainly don’t make it easy.