Out on Padre Island.
White Ibis.
They’re a southern thing. Conspicuous. Easy to find within their range.
Green Heron.
They have a broader distribution (but you don’t see them very often if you’re not looking for them). They like water edges.
And Least Bittern.
You’ll hardly ever see this one, even when looking. It looks like about the same range map as the green heron, but it’s generally secretive in marshes. We only spot one once every few years.
Adjacent to a water treatment plant. A lake for the effluent. And a wild area preserved in the middle of the city. Good walking. Good birding.
Great Egret.
Yellow-crowned Night Heron.
Black-crowned Night Heron.
Great Blue Heron.
Anhinga.
Showed them the mudflats.
There were birds.
And cars. Driving out on the mudflats is okay. The “mud” is mostly firm sand. Leaving the car sitting while the tide comes in and goes back out is not though. Remember standing at the edge of the ocean as kids? Stand in one spot and let the waves wash back and forth over your feet. That horizontal wave motion creates a vertical object motion. You slowly sink into the sand. A guy’s car sank, and the undercarriage was resting on the sand. Help had arrived in the form of shovels to try to dig the wheels out. They had been at it for quite a while, but that wasn’t going to solve his problem.
We got to make his day a little better (or suck a little less).
In the evening light.
Several hundred of these parrots live free in the Rio Grande Valley. They may have come from escaped cage birds, or they may have moved up from their natural range in northern Mexico. Nobody knows for sure, but nonetheless it’s a vibrant population that gathers each evening to roost.
