Wet Birds

I've decided to have a theme for this post. The theme is "wet birds". These birds are wet either because they have taken a bath or they are perched under a misting sprinkler. The migrants really appreciate the chance to cool off and clean their feathers after flying across the Gulf of Mexico.
We have rain predicted for tomorrow so they may get wet for another reason.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Spotted Towhee

Black-crested Titmouse

Brown Thrasher

Buff-bellied Hummingbird

Common Yellowthroat

Northern Cardinal

Tennessee Warbler

White-eyed Vireo

Northern Cardinal Female

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Spotted Towhee

Indigo Bunting

Rockport TX First Installment

April 13, 2012

I’m now staying in Rockport TX. I’ll be here until April 25^th. It’s Friday the 13^th. I thought about staying in bed, but the birds are waiting out there. I did a little tour of Rockport today. I visited the Maritime Museum. My dad would have enjoyed that. I also scoped out some places to find birds. I found a few birds that just wouldn’t wait so I just had to photograph them.

Ruddy Turnstone

Redish Egret

Brown Pelican



Brown Pelican

Egret Rookery at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville TX

April 12, 2012

OK here are the egret photos I promised. I didn’t carry my 500mm lens into the zoo. So I shot all these images with my 180mm lens. Enjoy.

Great Egret

Great Egret carrying nesting material

Great Egret

Great Egrets in courtship

On the nest

Snowy Egret

One more landing Neotropic Cormorant

Gladys Porter Zoo Brownsville TX

April 12, 2012

While I was staying on SPI, I took a trip to Brownsville to visit the Gladys Porter Zoo. http://www.gpz.org/aboutgpz.html
I was told that some local wild egrets had taken over an area of the zoo and formed a rookery. I’ve been spoiled having grown up with world famous St. Louis zoo that was curated by Marlin Perkins my entire childhood and a lot of my adult life. And of course I’ve had the San Diego zoo in CA. All that said this is a very nice zoo with large open enclosures for most of the animals. I won’t bore you with tons of zoo shots, but here are a few I thought worth sharing. I’ll post the rookery photos later.

Addax - An endangered antelope from the Sahara Desert



Mandarin Duck

Zebra Family

African Crested Cranes

Serval Cat (for the cat lovers out there)

SPI Migrants

April 12, 2012
A couple of days before I left SPI a few migratory birds started arriving on the island. Some of these little birds have come from South America and some will go up to the Arctic and Alaska.
They sure are tired and hungry when they arrive here.

Black-and-white Warbler

Nashville Warbler

Tennessee Warbler

Northern Parula

White-eyed Vireo

Orchard Oriole

Scarlet Tanager

Willet (Hey how did you get in here?)

Goodbye to SPI

April 12, 2012
It’s time to leave South Padre Island (SPI). I have mixed feelings about this. I’ll miss the birding, but I sure won’t miss the young, loud, obnoxious people whose idea of a good time is trashing the beautiful beaches here.
I’ll also say goodbye to a couple of new friends. Here are their photos

Me new mate.

Go for a swim anyone?

Arrived on South Padre Island TX (SPI)

April 3 – 6, 2012
I am now on South Padre Island TX. I have heard and read about all the great birding on and around the island, but I was quite surprised to see the development on the island. It looks like Miami. High rises everywhere and traffic is terrible. Whoever allowed the natural habitat here to be destroyed should be shot. I think if Texas cared about the migrating birds as much as they claim to, this would never have happened.
The island is a zoo during spring break, but that is over so I thought things would be quiet. I forgot that it’s Easter weekend. Thursday was actually a lovely day on the Island. By Friday noon the county RV park where I’m staying started filling up with young, loud people. I was young and loud once, but I’m old and quiet now. Loud annoys me. The county park employees do not enforce the rules very well, if at all. There are people who come from up north and stay in this park all winter. Most have left, but there are still a few here. They get the same campsite every year and some of them have landscaped their sites with flower beds and lawn ornaments. They are quite lovely. I wish I would have thought to ask for one of the sites that have been vacated by the snowbirds. I think that area of the park is much more quiet.
Linda and Carole drove over from Arroyo City to meet me at the SPI World Birding Center here and say goodbye. They are spending Easter weekend back in San Antonio and will be moving to NE Texas after that and then on to hill country before they head back to CA.  I don’t plan to be in NE TX for a couple of weeks. It sure was a pleasure having their company for the last couple of months.
I took a drive to Boca Chica beach near Brownsville and I visited Audubon’s Sabal Palm Wildlife Sanctuary. I drove through a huge opening in the “security fence” the border patrol has erected to get to the sanctuary. How secure is that? The border patrol did have a check point on the road to Boca Chica beach. No sniffing dogs this time. They just ask me if I was an American citizen. I said yes. They believed me and waved me on. Guess I don’t look like a drug smuggler or illegal alien smuggler. I have spent the last couple of months very near the border with Mexico and I have seen numerous border patrol employees. I’m not sure how effective it is to have all these people running around the desert. It almost seems like it’s mostly for show.
It was encouraging to see all the miles of wildlife management area on both sides of the road on the way to the beach.
Here are a few photos I’ve taken of the area so far. I hope to have more next week when(if) things quiet down a bit.

They will always be Moorhens to me

Clapper Rail

Sora

Tricolored Heron

White Ibis

Black Skimmer

Sanderling at Boca Chica Beach

Racoon fishing at Sabal Palms Sanctuary