Posted on

Last week,

 …we had a good day ducking at the Birding Center pond.  We stood and stared at a couple thousand ducks, recognizing a few different species, (and missing the one we were after). This week, we decided to go parroting at a park in the Valley where parrots fly in to roost in the evenings.  We were there, not to find a specific bird, but to revel in the spectacle (and to see how many species of parrots we could identify).  So at 5pm, binoculars and camera in hand, we watched a great (and loud) flock of Red-crowned Parrots arrive.  Those are the native parrots here, Red-crowned Parrots.  They live in a few flocks in south Texas, and mostly in Mexico. We also managed to pick out three other species in the flock.Red-lored Parrot… White-fronted Parrot… ..and Yellow-headed Parrot.(Parrots fly in to their roost at dusk, so it’s hard to get good pictures in the evening light.) Who knew there were so many parrots flying around?  
Posted on

Jon said..

 Jon said he saw a Eurasian Wigeon at the birding center yesterday.  That would be a life bird for us.  We see plenty of American Wigeon, but Eurasian Wigeons are very unusual. So off we went to the birding center this morning, binoculars, scope, and camera in hand, in search of one Eurasian Wigeon. There were a few Redhead ducks to sort through to find the prize. Not an insurmountable challenge, just break the lake of ducks into sections, zoom in a little, take a photograph of each section… …then blow up each section on the computer, and see if anything looks different. One of these birds is not like the others. And one of these birds is a Horned Grebe. From amongst the Redhead Ducks, we spotted American Wigeon, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Bufflehead, Ruddy Duck, Pied-billed Grebe, and Horned Grebe (That Horned Grebe is a really good bird.  It’s the first time ever we’ve seen one in Nueces County.), but alas, no Eurasian Wigeon today.