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Another Trya for the Altamira

Well, I had my annual wellness exam with my doctor today.  Another year with “impeccable” (doctor’s word, not mine) health stats.  A constant diet of running and lifting may take its toll on your time over the year, but it definitely pays off in the numbers.  My employer also provides me annual comprehensive lab screenings so I knew the numbers going into today.  Ironically, I came out of the office with a hole in my arm and an hour or two later I wasn’t able to lift my arm above my waist.  Extremely healthy going in…damaged coming out thanks to my doctor convincing me I should get a tetanus shot with all the trail running.  Probably a good plan – I do shed my fair share of blood during the course of the year with the Halloween props, work on the lot and ideas that do not go as planned  – but damn this hurts.  Making the most out of my gimpy fin, figure it never hurts to stay on top of the blog quota.

Altamira Oriole shot at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park January 2018

Keeping with the theme from the last post, tonight’s offering focuses on a bird that has previously debuted on the blog while trying to get as many Texas birds added prior to the Audubon speech (link here).  Like the Woodpecker, it was also found at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park (along the Rio Grande River) while on a birding trip to South Texas at the beginning of the year.  Similar to the situation with the last post, the previous series was taken in rather harsh light.

Altamira Oriole shot at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park

Hit the jump to see and read a bit more about this Central America bird.

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Should Have Known to Look Up

Going for the trifecta with today’s featured post.  If you have been following along, we are all about the big state of Texas here at the headquarters of Intrigued.  More specifically, we are laser focused on pushing my bird count up thanks to a number of visits to the Gulf Coast – wiping the sweat from our brows, pounding Alleve to counter the swelling in our fingers from typing and rubbing our eyes from pouring over reference books to properly ID the backlog of images we are trying to get through.  Like the last post on the Vermilion Flycatcher, our current focus of attention was pretty easy on the ID front.

Altamira Oriole shot at Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge Texas January 2017

Up to this point, I have been able to cover our local Baltimore Oriole (link here).  Thanks to a trip to South Dakota I was able to add the Orchard Oriole to the mix (link here).   Adding to this growing collection of Orioles, a visit to the Red Rocks Ampitheatre produced a surprising Bullock’s Oriole (link here).  Not a bad haul when it comes to the Oriole family.  With those, I pretty much had the northern, east and west staples covered.  Turns out, I can now add the southern tip of Texas – and I mean the very southern tip.

Altamira Oriole shot at Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge Texas January 2017

Hit the jump to read more about this Oriole family member.

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