South Padre Island

This morning started off with what we called a raggedy beginning in Girl Scouts. From my photos, I knew I needed to clean the sensor in my camera. So I got up when I was "fresh" and did a quick clean. Started grabbing the stuff I needed for the day. And then . . . . . I could not find the car keys. After checking the most logical places, I knew I needed to get Henry's keys and scoot. When I got to the municipal auditorium, I grabbed my camera bag and my tripod. I put my water, Dr. Pepper and granola bars in a bag. I tied the jacket around my waste and started walking over to the buses. Something nagged me . . . I felt like I was missing something. But I shrugged it off to the fact I had put the water bottles in a bag so I was not juggling several bottles and the other stuff like I did the day before. About 10 minutes into the bus ride I realized that I had indeed left something behind . . . . my binoculars. Sigh . . . . Determined not to let that ruin my morning, I told myself that I did have my big lens. When we got to the first location near the Convention Center on South Padre, most of the bird watching was done with the scopes. Since everyone shared their scopes with those that did not have them, I was able to get some good looks at the shorebirds and water birds. When I went out on the board walks, most of the birds were visible, pretty up close and personal. I got to see moor hens, a tri-colored heron up close, a marsh wren, and a common yellow throat. Because I ended up on the board walks before many of the others I had a chance to observe some very interesting little fish. These fish were about three to four inches long. They spent most of their time feeding on the surface. Sometimes you would see their silvery bodies as they would flop out of the water. The fun part came when something startled the whole school and they all surfaced at once. I waited patiently with my camera ready and actually got some shots of this. None of the guides and none of the people on the tour seemed to know what species of fish. Mullet comes to mind, but in my experience, mullet behave differently. Mullet are larger and tend to jump higher out of the water. A single mullet will make three or four giant leaps before vanishing again under water.

Closer to the convention center, was an area with trees. We saw pewees, golden crowned kinglets, ruby crowned kinglets, yellow rumped warblers. We made another stop several blocks south of the convention center at an area that has been preserved for wildlife. It is a small area, but we actually saw quite a few birds here. Cedar wax wings, pine warbler, yellow rumped warblers, and golden crowned kinglets. The warblers acted very tired from their recent migration.

Then we piled on the same boat from the Arroyo trip to cruise Laguna Madre. One of our first bird sightings was a peregrin falcon near the bridge. We stopped traffic as we went through a swing bridge. I always enjoy going through a port area watching the big fishing boats. We came on a sandy area where there were quite a few osprey just perched on the sand. At least two of them had a fish that they were eating for breakfast. And both of those had a seagull sitting about three feet away hoping to steal the fish away from the osprey. There was another sandy area that had maybe two dozen blue herons standing on the sand. We saw several different turns, black skimmers, some white ibis, roseate spoonbill, sanderlings, marbled godwits, willets, a northern harrier.

Heading toward the passageway to the gulf we passed a gulf oil rig being towed by several tugboats. Quite a sight. As we got to the south end of Padre Island we began to see bottle nosed dolphins in the water. The rocky jetties had a fair number of fishermen, but I only remember seeing a ruddy turnstone trying to find food in the rocks. As we actually entered the gulf, it got pretty choppy. I'm so glad I don't have problems with sea sickness. I just held on and was glad I had secured my camera bag and tripod. On our way bag we encountered a pod of dolphins with at least one baby.

While I did not get as good a look at some of the birds, if I had to forget my binoculars one day, this was a good day for it. The first part had scopes, and the latter parts had birds that were pretty much out in the open even if they were far away. Plus, after 5 days of birding, my get up and go had left. I found myself checking out all the birds that were being pointed out, but I made less effort to id the shorebirds For one thing, I am familiar with some of them. For another, I bought the book that goes through the shorebirds and helps you identify them in ways besides their plumage (which changes each season of the year anyway.) . I found myself enjoying a bird sighting and then going to the back and sitting down until the next new bird came along. Normally I'm at the front of the boat, taking it all in. But today, I was tired.

We got back to the Municipal Auditiorium. I made one last purchase at the Birder's Bazaar (an ocelot T-shirt to commemorate seeing the ocelot.) Henry was there, jeep attached to the RV, ready for the sprint to New Mexico. After lunch, I crashed into a deep slumber as Henry made the miles.