Acorn Woodpecker – outside our cottage, Chisos Mountain Lodge

Today we travelled west from Concan on the Edwards Plateau to the Chisos Mountains is the far west of Texas, close to the Mexican border, in a bend of the Rio Grande. Most of the eight hour drive was spent crossing the Chihuahuan Desert. We arrived at Big Bend National Park by mid-afternoon and birded a couple of sites before checking-in to our cottage at the Chisos Mountain Lodges. A bit of local birding then before dinner and turning in for the night, in preparation for our big day in the Chisos Mountains. On our journey over we got held up for twenty minutes whilst they concluded another pre-race heat of the Big Bend Open Road Race between Sanderson to Fort Stockton – apparently one of the most prestigious saloon car time trials in the USA.

Say’s Phoebe, in the grounds of the Lodge

Another speciality of the local area – Townsend’s Solitaire

One of the 160 competitors, completing a preliminary heat in the Big Bend Open Road Race