In the early morning hours of June 12 a first spring male Flame-colored Tanager was found in the vicinity of the Boot Spring campsites in Big Bend National Park by Canadian birder Malkolm Boothroyd. Malkolm, a high school sophomore, is doing a Big Year by bicycle, accompanied by his parents, Wendy Boothroyd and Ken Madsen. (Read about their "Bird Year" on their website).

Mike Austin's Big Bend Adventure
Flame-colored Tanager: YES

Backpacked up to Boot Canyon for the tanager Friday afternoon & back down yesterday. This Herculean effort (2 gallons of water @ 8.33# each plus sleeping bag, mat, etc.: not bad for someone with recently acquired "geezer" status of 59) was prompted by Daniel Jones's 6-17 posting that the bird was an early riser (EXCELLENT advice as it turned out).

Reached my campsite at BC2 (remember that number for future reference) about 6:40 pm, three hours after I left the Basin trailhead. It was quite quiet as I had expected. The only tanager I succeeded in torturing (or was it torturing me) with my feeble Pygmy-Owl imitations turned out to be a Hepatic.

Sleeping out under the stars and, after 1 a.m. an almost full moon was quite wonderful. I was serenaded by a cacophony of "Ridgeway's" Whip-poor-will's (ALL night) & by two Flammulated Owls, one on each side of the canyon about 9:20 pm. My sleeping bag was strafed by a very low-altitude bat at dusk as well.

I was up early & in campsites BC 3&4 by 6:45. The boot in silhouette with the brightening sky behind it was wonderful! Right at 7 I heard what was definitely a tanager call: three notes like a Summer but very low pitched & "hoarse". I went back to the junction of the BC 3&4 trails & much to my amazement the bird flew out & landed eight feet directly over my head! This was good news & bad news. I could see it was a greenish yellow tanager with a dark cheek patch & some reddish around the base of the bill like a basic plumaged Western Tanager but couldn't see the wings or the back. It stayed only a few seconds, then flew higher out of sight sang lustily from three unseen perches above the canopy. The phrases were very low pitched, widely spaced, and burry like the ones I recalled hearing in Mexico. I listened to the Coffey's old tapes "Songs of Mexican Birds" tonight and confirmed my recollection that the song was, definitely, a Flame-colored Tanager. It then sang once farther up the draw behind BC 4 and, like the experience a week ago, was never heard or seen again in the next four hours. The bird seems to be roosting at BC3/4 but where it forages the rest of the day seems to be entirely random. After the ten minute tanager show, I figured the excitement for the day was over.

I walked back up canyon & when I got within 200 yards of my campsite (BC2, remember) I began to hear really curious noises which seemed to be coming from down in the wash which was behind my campsite. There was repeated ripping & tearing & I thought a bear must be tearing bark off a tree, perhaps to find honey. No matter how I positioned myself, I could see no bruin. When the commotion ceased, I headed down canyon again to see if the tanager had returned which, of course, it hadn't. So I headed back to my campsite. When I rounded the large rock which had separated the site from my earlier observation point, I found the "bee tree": my pack & campsite! I came upon my sleeping bag first, about 100 yards from the site. The one water bottle I had left behind atop the bear box (where I had dutifully stored all my foodstuffs) had a ring of teeth marks around it. One pocket had been torn off the side of the pack. But most mystifying was the total disappearance of my inflatable mattress. I searched a 200 yard radius & must surmise the bear took it with him. I have filled out the relevant incident reports at the Basin Ranger Station & everyone on the park staff is in the lookout for a bear reclining on an orange inflatable mattress somewhere in the high country!

-- Mike Austin, June 22, 2008