15th Annual and Final BirdFest

This morning Skip and I got up in time to make it to a 9am talk at BirdFest at the golf course in Laguna Vista. Javier González (aka Javi pronounced "have-ee") did a great slide show about distinguishing characteristics of sparrows and warblers that frequent this area. Listening to him speak, one can tell he really loves his job being a birding expert at the Birding and Nature Centre on the island.

Before his talk started, BirdFest coordinator, Janet Randall told us it was the 15th BirdFest and would be the last. In recent years it has been more and more difficult to arrange for speakers and other activities. One of the scheduled speakers had to cancel on fairly short notice so Janet, and Mary Ann and Bob Severson showed slides of their birding whilst travelling to Africa and South America respectively. Janet remarked that she could now totally empathize with new birders who really don't know the names of any birds as she was totally stumped when seeing new birds in Africa.

During one of the breaks, Janet gave a plug for the Fish and Shrimp Fry fund raiser for the Laguna Vista library that was taking place at a nearby park. Skip and I headed there for lunch. For $8 we got several deep fried shrimp and a decent-sized piece of a white fish. They had run out of cole slaw so gave us extra shrimp. There was also a cookie in each container. It was all very yummy.

Then we went for a walk on the Laguna Vista walking trail.

Up on a wire was some kind of flycatcher. The light was bad so I'm not sure what it was.

The huisache have reached their blooming peak. They still smell great.

I'm very pleased with the birdwatching setting on my Nikon CoolPix B700. It makes a very small focus 'box' which allows me to take shots of birds behind branches and foliage.

The Northern Mockingbird is the state bird of Texas. It's also the state bird of Tennessee, Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

A few yuccas are in bloom.

At one of the bird blinds, a female ruby-throated hummingbird was sharing the feeder with some bees.

Yellow-rumped warbler.

Orange-crowned warbler.

The grey catbird didn't come out from behind this branch.

Then a rabbit hopped in to take a drink at the water feature.

It didn't seem to be bothered by this white-tipped dove.

This is the white-tipped dove's habitat.

A lot of the birds we see here are only place they're seen in the US.

The rabbit hung around for a while. It didn't know that I hate rabbits.

On our way back to the car I looked up at the overhead wires and saw a Great Kiskadee.

We'd had a lot of activity for one day but stopped in at WalMart to make a couple of purchases then headed back to the condo for naps.