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We got a Wild Kingdom moment at Davis Mountains. We were watching the
sparrows and goldfinches at a bird blind, when with a burst, they all took
off at once. When that happens, we know to look up. That sudden flight
means there is a hawk. There was a hawk, a sharp-shinned hawk, blasting in
through the trees, like they do, nailing the slowest goldfinch. That
happened fast. Tough on the goldfinch, but feeding time for the hawk. From the beach we spotted a flock of thirty eared grebes feeding in the
breaker line, just offshore. Yesterday, we had that little least grebe
swimming at our feet. Loons, two kinds of cormorants, six kinds of herons
and egrets. Ibis, black bellied whistling ducks, geese, mottled ducks, a
white-tailed hawk drifts past. Went looking on the beach for the piping
plover and found the snowy plover instead. Killdeer, yellowlegs,
long-billed curlew. Turnstones, sanderlings, least sandpipers. Three kinds
of gulls, three kinds of terns. Inca doves and a great kiskadee. We saw a great blue heron lick his lips. Really. He has a long thin tongue that looks like a piece of wire. He can
extend and run it down each side of his bill, in a motion that could be
described as licking his lips, if he actually had lips. And who’s to say,
in fact, that he doesn’t? He could have lips. Really really thin lips that
we can’t even see, but he knows they’re there, or else why would he be
licking them in the first place?

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Santa Clause found us while we were in the Davis Mountains. I got a birding
telescope. Judy got a new tripod. Coincidentally, the scope and the tripod
match and can be used together. We got to use them both today. We drove
fifteen miles down the national seashore beach to Yarborough Pass, crossed
the four-wheel drive road through the dunes to the Laguna Madre side, pulled
over for lunch, and scoped some birds. A nice day in the sun. A fifty-bird
day. We stood and watched a least grebe feeding in the water right at our feet.
He was so cute!