The Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival on Birding Adventures TV

Well, maybe.  Since I was the one being interviewed, and I’m horrible on camera, maybe we’ll end up on the editing room floor.

But it was fun nonetheless.  Birding Adventures TV (www.birdingadventures.com), with host James Currie, is being aired on some national FOX channels – try to catch it in your area.  James and his camera man/producer Jeff Aderman were in the Valley last week doing episodes here that are slated to air early in 2010.  Our bit with them was to find and film Harlingen’s Red-crowned Parrots coming into roost.

Left to right:  Rich Hoyer, WINGS birding tour guide, James Currie (looking dubious at something I’m saying), me (saying something like oops, another take please!), Jeff Aderman.  Here’s another, just for fun:

And Red-crowneds we had galore – a great noisy swirling flock of them.  At one point they were silhouetted against a saturated rainbow, as they squawked and seemingly argued with each other about roost choices.

It’s generally agreed that our countable population is a mix of naturally-occurring partially-vagrant natives plus an addition of released wild-caught caged birds from the 60’s.  They are a vibrant part of our community.  The Festival runs afternoon parrot tours, so you can come down and join the fun hunt about town.