Cold Front

A cold front has rolled in and the wind has shifted to the north under overcast skies. We ventured out this morning in hopes of finding lots of birds that didn't want to fight the wind and pose for us.

We only saw three new birds today and no lifers: white-tailed kite, ruby-throated hummingbird, and orange-crowned warbler.

It was REALLY windy.

Male Great Southern White Butterfly

Great Southern White with its wings open

Roseate Spoonbill not making much headway as it flies into the wind

Spoonbills hunkered down 

That is one very strange-looking bird

Scissor-tailed Flycatchers face into the wind and hang on tightly

These scissortails gave up and just headed for the ground.

Along the boardwalk mangroves in the lee of the wind, I spied a black-crowned night heron.

Sora

Snowy Egret

Clapper Rail

Reddish Egret

 Looking to the south from the first boardwalk, was a watery expanse today. Normally, that area is all dried up, however the north wind has blown the water down the Laguna Madre and high tide was abnormally high today.

Closeup of the Double-crested Cormorant drying its wings

In the butterfly garden at the Birding and Nature Center was an Eurasian Collared Dove.

The wind made for some challenging birding today. It is supposed to warm up tomorrow so hopefully we'll see more migrating species on our outing with our Thursday birding group, the Bay Area Birders. We'll be birding at the Convention Center and the Birding and Nature Center next door.