Day 5 provided a fantastic opportunity to soak in breathtaking views high up in the Davis Mountains of West Texas and add some more birds to the list. As always, the pictures don’t do this place justice. You’ve just gotta GO!

We connected with our new friend, Bill Sain, in Alpine the night before, ran over to ‘The Post’ in Marathon for Elf Owl and then headed to the Davis Mountains first thing on Thursday. (A shout out to Martin Hagne for putting us in touch with him!) Special thanks to Bill as he SO very kindly set aside Wednesday night and all day Thursday for us.  We share LOTS of mutual friends in the birding world, but hadn’t had the opportunity to bird together until now.   Bill’s such a sweet and fascinating person. I’m certain it’s not our last birding adventure together! 🙂

We missed a couple targets, but just enjoying our time high up in the picturesque Davis Mountains MORE than made up for that!

We even got an impromptu tour of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope from a telescope mirror specialist at the McDonald Observatory. (You KNOW that tour was a real treat for all of us, especially this science teacher!) The telescope is currently being updated to perform world-wide collaborative research on……….

****cue background Twilight Zone music now***

Dark Energy.

Yes, if you’re in the hard sciences.. It’s a thing. VERY cool!

Here are the new year birds we had in the Davis Mountains. # 350 is within reach! :

We ended the day with a lovely dinner of tapas at The Saddle Club in Alpine with Bill’s wife, Marian and mother, Gwen. You can probably tell from the picture above, this Yankee just KNEW she was NOT in Maryland anymore! 🙂  Fun!

As I reflect on our day with Bill, this quote keeps coming to mind.

Yes’m, old friends is always best, ‘less you can catch a new one that’s fit to make an old one out of.  ~Sarah Orne Jewett

Marian, Bill, Gwen and Nancy