I have spent many hours, over the years I have been going to the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, stalking the Clay-colored Robin…down trails at Bensten Rio Grande State Park (now the Bensten SP World Birding Center), through the picnic grounds at Anzalduas Park, and all around other rumored haunts of the illusive valley specialty.

So imagine my surprise when processing my images from the National Butterfly Center, to discover that what I had taken for a immature American Robin in the 30 second glimpse I got when it hopped up on to a branch about 15 feet from me and I got off a single burst of shots, was, in fact, an adult Clay-colored Robin. I have never seen one this close, and I have never seen one in a tree. I did not even have time to back off on the zoom to get the whole bird in! (I had the camera set for Butterflies at 6 feet…not Clay-colored Robins at 15!) That is just the way it is in birding.

And imagine further my surprise when I looked up the range of the bird and discovered that they have changed the common name to Clay-colored Thrush while I was not paying attention! The Clay-colored Thrush is common all through Central America and is the national bird of Costa Rica, but is only reliably found in the US right along the Rio Grande River in south Texas (though its range is, apparently, expanding north).

Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. 1800mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/640th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.