BOB KORNEGAY: Birding sometimes leads to weird destinations

It began on St. George Island in October 2016. My mother, Renea Simpson, and I were down there looking for migrating fall warblers. So were Albany’s Larry Gridley and Alan Ashley, two birding friends we unexpectedly happened upon that fall morning.

As fellow birders are wont to do, throughout the day we conversed on myriad birding subjects.

At one point I mentioned my party’s upcoming trip to the Rio Grande Valley and our hopes of seeing a White-collared Seedeater, a life bird we’d missed during our first RGV trip the year before. That resulted in Alan’s naming some prospective Seedeater locations near Weslaco, Texas, where we would be lodging.

We talked about sites in Starr and Zapata Counties and Alan’s reference to one in particular with which I was familiar.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “That’s where they sometimes see Seedeaters on the grounds of the public library there.”

“That’s the place,” Alan noted.

Then, a harrumph from Larry.

“There sure wasn’t any library where I saw my first one!” he interjected.

“And that would be where?” I queried.

“Laredo,” he replied. “In the worst slum you can imagine!”

Gridley’s description of the place was amusing, especially as he recounted his driving around in his rental car attempting to find a parking spot as close as possible to the Border Patrol vehicles staked out beside the Rio Grande’s notorious river cane thickets. By the time he’d finished his detailed recollection, I’d prudently crossed Laredo off my list of potential birding locations. Mom, Renea and I chuckled over Larry’s “horror” stories throughout the remainder of the day.

Fast forward to Dec. 4. Weslaco, early evening. Comfortably ensconced at the Weslaco Inn, my birding partners and I held a confab. I scrolled through my online rare bird alerts and announced, “It’s still there!”

“Let’s go!” Mom said.

“First thing in the morning!” Renea added.

“All right, we’ll try for it,” I said. “Go to bed and get some sleep.”

The “It” in question was a big “It” indeed. It was an Amazon Kingfisher, a real United States rarity. If our quest succeeded, it would be the rarest bird any of us had ever seen. What an opportunity.

Where exactly was this rare birding jewel? Three hours away in, you guessed it, Laredo.

Despite Gridley’s earlier story, I harbored no major concern. I mean, just consider the name of the site: Las Palmas Trail at Zacate Creek. Sounded beautiful, romantic even. Surely it’s in one of Laredo’s better neighborhoods.

We hit Laredo about 8 a.m. the following morning. Some traffic, but other than a strange sign in a window that read, “We Rent Tires,” nothing weird or scary presented itself.

Then we turned off the main road.

Uh oh. What has this old Georgia boy done gone and got hisself into?

The neighborhood was right out of a gangland documentary. Derelict cars lined the narrow streets on both sides. I crept along at 10 mph, not a judicious pace considering the shredded screen porches, loose-running pit bulls, and ostentatiously tattooed residents who stared at us like starving vultures eyeballing a deer carcass.

We finally reached the “park,” a derelict basketball court flanked by more-of-the-same houses and vehicles on one side, the equally ill-used Las Palmas Trail on the other. Alongside the trail ran Zacate Creek, emptying dirtily into the Rio Grande.

Eight fellow birders were already there. One was a southern Californian originally from Walker County, Georgia. That put me somewhat more at ease.

For 45 minutes we searched, feeling baleful stares trained upon us from every dwelling. Renea shot photos of the piled-up junk in the yards as I moved as far away from her as possible. Around here, I thought, point-and-shoot does not apply to digital cameras alone.

And there was NO Amazon Kingfisher. A pall fell upon all present.

Then came a mass birder exodus. Folks piled into cars and roared off as if a dam was about to break.

“Tres Laredo Park!” The words echoed up and down the creek.

We were the last to leave. In my rearview I watched the water treatment plant, the Border Patrol vehicles and the mountains of Styrofoam dwindle in size.

God bless GPS! It took me straight to Tres Laredo Park, situated, thankfully, in a “good part” of Laredo.

And there it was. Our Amazon Kingfisher, perched calmly in the willows on the bank of the river.

Driving back to Weslaco, I remembered Gridley’s story. Hmm. Was that his White-collared Seedeater spot? Some of those details certainly matched up.

And, of course, there weren’t no dadgum library there, either!

Contact outdoors columnist and writer Bob Kornegay at [email protected].