Skip and I got up bright and early this morning to meet our birding group at the San Benito Wetlands - about 60km from the island. There are several ponds that wildlife like to frequent.
When we first arrived, the gate was locked and the rest of our group hadn't arrived yet.
I saw the brilliant red of a vermilion flycatcher. The first one we've seen this year!
Then the rest of our group arrived and the wildlife worker who opened the gate for us. There were a couple dozen of us. Birders know to dress in layers. It was in the single digits (Celsius) when we arrived and by the time we left it was 16C and several layers had been peeled off.
We first visited the shallow ponds.
There were 19 white pelicans swimming around.
One of them appeared to not to be able to fly because when its mates flew off to a different pond (as we neared), it just climbed out of this pond and walked over to the next one, then the next one where the others had landed.
There was a very cute calico kitty that hung around us all day. It appeared to have weepy eyes and it sneezed several times so we encouraged folks not to pet it. It did like to rub against our pants, though, and followed us around all morning.
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| Skip and the kitty |
Anhinga
A pair of northern shovelers
A snowy egret spent quite a long time trying to choke down a rather large fish.
We heard the meadowlarks before we saw them.
We always debate whether it's an eastern or western meadowlard. They look very similar but the main diagnostic is the distinctive song. Back at the condo, I checked my birding app on my phone and determined that this indeed was an eastern meadowlark. I love the bright yellow colour.
Loggerhead shrike.
Then the meadowlark strutted across the road. I wanted a frontal shot.
On the deeper pond were several least grebes.
It is very cool to see least grebes as south Texas is the only place in the US where they can be seen.
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