#ABArare – Amazon Kingfisher – Texas

Breaking news from the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Texas, where Jeff Bouton discovered an ABA Code 5 Amazon Kingfisher near San Benito in Cameron County, Texas.

The bird is being seen at a resaca (oxbow lake) east of the intersection of US 77 and Tx-100. The resaca is on the south side of the road, though the bird has been seen some from the north side as well. This location is about 13 minutes from downtown Harlingen, Texas, and 22 minutes from Brownsville.

As of the writing of this post many birders from the festival are making their way to the site, so birders may have their best luck traveling to the vicinity and looking for the crowd.

Please note that the bird is showing from a very busy highway, and birders should take care not to carelessly step into traffic.

This is the second documented ABA Area record of this species, which ranges widely from southern Tamaulipas, Mexico into South America as far south as Uruguay and Argentina. The first record was an individual in Laredo, Texas, in late January of 2010. That bird stayed just over a week before disappearing in early February.