Lots of birds in the Zooming slide show this month – from the Whooping Crane Festival in south Texas as well as Josey Ranch (Carrollton TX), the Springfield Botanical Gardens (Springfield MO) and Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge (near Sherman TX). I find myself picking images that show bird behavior rather than portraits.
There are spring flowers in this collection as well…more of those coming in April!
Enjoy the March 2024 slide show!
We signed up for a shorebird identification field trip for the third afternoon of the Whooping Crane Festival. We got on the bus after lunch and, it turned out, spent the whole session at Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center…which was fine with us since we had wanted to return there. We spent less time with the guide and just enjoyed all the birds at the place. There is a lot to see; the boardwalk makes it easy to see birds without disturbing them. The shallows are a popular place for them to feel secure enough to rest and bathe…and snack.
American white pelicans – in a big group or singles.
The common gallinule was near the alligator (again). I decided to take close up views of the feet (very long toes).
A black necked stilt wondered along through other species…looking aloof.
The green-winged teals were bathing…preening.
Grackles were bathing and preening too….or making raucous noise in the reeds and glaring at my camera.
A pied-billed grebe wandered near the reeds…hiding in plain sight as usual. Once I noticed the bird, I took a series of pictures as it found lunch.
A northern shoveler snoozed…another perched on a post in the water.
Ibis preened and stretched their wings.
I took a series of images of a bird in the shallows…thoroughly cleaning its feathers. It takes a series of contortions. The bird appeared to be enjoying the water!
A blue-winged teal showed the blue on its wing when it bathed.
Now for some group pictures. They are good for size comparison and ID practice. The first has 2 black-necked stilts and a male northern shoveler.
The second had a black-necked stilt and 4 American avocets.
The smaller birds were easily startled and would explode up into air…circle and return very close to where they were before the panic.
There were neotropic cormorants seemingly content to just sit in the sun.
There was a tricolored heron that seemed to be posing for pictures. I couldn’t resist!
The alligator did not move at all in the several hours we were there!
Overall – the place lived up to my expectations; we could have done it on our own rather than with the bus/guide. I am beginning to understand better that we have learned enough about birding to leave more free time to during festivals…or go early/stay late.
The last field trip of the festival would be the next morning at Fennessey Ranch.
We were at the dock for the 7 AM departure of our boat on the third day of the Whooping Crane Festival.
I took a few pictures before we boarded – the moon over the harbor area.
Our destination was the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge where Whooping Cranes feed in the marshy/shallow areas…only visible via boat and it took over an hour to get there from Port Aransas. We passed familiar areas early on and saw a group of American white pelicans, morning light with moon setting over the shore, roseate spoonbills and white ibis in the distance, and the Aransas Pass Lydia Ann Lighthouse.
Then we entered an area that was different than our previous tours and more open water…with occasional platforms with cormorants and great blue herons hunkered in the chilly morning wind. There was a tall bridge as well.
Then there started to be a lot of small islands full of birds: Cormorants, great blue herons and brown pelicans. One area seemed to have a lot of great blue herons and I wondered if the island was their roost. There were also groups of laughing gulls. (Click on the small images to see a larger version.)
And then we started seeing Whooping Cranes. Even at a distance – they are easy to identify because they are so large…and so white. The young are rusty looking – particularly their heads. Many sightings were of 3 birds: 2 adult birds and a colt; it must have been a good year for increasing the whooping crane population!
There were other birds to see too between whooping crane sightings – roseate spoonbills, green-winged teals, willets, American avocets, more great blue herons, buffleheads, cormorants, an osprey, and reddish egret (that took off as a wave covered the spit of shells the bird was standing on).
I took some closeups of some shells…out of the water at low tide.
I also realized how wakes of boats impact the shoreline…why there are often blocks on the shore to reduce the erosion wakes can cause. It doesn’t take a big or fast-moving boat to cause damaging wakes in smaller channels.
And then we took a break as we headed back to Port Aransas – no more photos until the jetty with the usual brown pelicans.
We got back to the dock with plenty of time before our afternoon field trip for lunch; we then headed back to the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center.
The second day of the Whooping Crane Festival started early; we got on a bus to head to the King Ranch at 6 AM! The King Ranch Visitor Center was a little over an hour from Port Aransas (and we did not take the ferry). By the time we got there the sun was up.
We had a ‘rest stop’ at the visitor center…plenty of time to look around for birds. There were curve-billed thrashers on some prickly pear cactus.
A rufous hummingbird was not bothered by the sudden influx of people. It stayed in place long enough for everyone to get a good look.
Mockingbirds were around too….they are the state bird of Texas.
A golden-fronted woodpecker was spotted. It moved around a lot but there always seemed to be twigs between me and the bird!
Then we did most of our viewing from the bus for a bit since the ranch is so big…and the trip has a limited amount of time. I managed some OK pictures through the windows: a roadrunner and crested caracara….
Longhorn cattle.
We made a stop and saw a group of sandhill cranes in the distance.
Back on the bus…we had been seeing American kestrels all morning and I eventually managed to get an image of one through the bus window…good enough for id but focus not sharp enough.
A group of female wild turkeys moved away as our bus got closer. Later we would see a group of male turkeys.
Another raptor through the bus window…a red-shouldered hawk.
The bus stopped at a water impoundment…and we all got an excellent view of an American Bittern.
There was a feeding station for birds at the next stop. We got good looks at red-winged blackbirds and gold-fronted woodpeckers…
And green jays!
There was a least grebe in the water a little ways down the road.
A snowy egret had caught breakfast.
Green-winged teal, pyrrhuloxia, and American Coots were also enjoying the water.
Alligator!
A Great Egret took off as the alligator headed toward it.
In the distance….Cinnamon teal with blue winged teal and a black necked stilt.
A great kiskadee made an appearance.
A black-crowned night heron is often hard to see in heavy vegetation. I always feel lucky when I finally see it and luckier still to get a photograph.
And the male turkeys were the last birds we saw as we headed back to the visitor center.
My husband and I both enjoyed this field trip…saw a lot of birds that we didn’t see during any of other field trips. It was interesting to learn a little history of the King Ranch as well. We had enough time for a quick lunch before showing up for trip out on a boat in the afternoon.
We had registered for the Whooping Crane Festival months ago…and managed to attend it between my mother’s death and her funeral. Being out in nature at a birding festival was a healing activity. It helped that my husband did all the driving. We made the drive from our home in Missouri to Port Aransas TX over 2 days. We started out before sunrise…
The clouds gradually dissipated into whisps before the sky cleared entirely.
I enjoyed trying to take pictures as we went through Dallas…not something I get to do very often because I am usually driving.
We stopped near Austin for the night. We got to Port Aransas early enough for lunch and to visit Roberts Point Park. There were groups of brown pelicans and cormorants easily viewed from the park. I liked the pelicans at rest…images in high key.
There was a snowy egret on the rocks showing off his yellow socks. When I looked at my pictures on my larger monitor, I noticed that there are yellow strips on the back of the legs!
There were large ships visible in the channel.
We also visited the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center…quickly realizing that we’d have to return when we had more time.
There were black-necked stilts – with their striking black and white bodies, straight black bill, and pink legs.
Blue winged teals flashing iridescent color as they preened.
A very sedentary alligator was lolling below the boardwalk (although with its eye open).
A common gallinule was feeding nearby.
A group of American white pelicans were preening in the shallows.
A larger group was on the shore.
Green winged teals preening in the shallow water…or lazing on the shore.
White ibis were in the area…sometimes feeding together and sometimes in small groups.
We were there in the early afternoon, and it surprised me that the light made the water color and shadows so artsy for this grouping for birds – snoozing and preening. At this moment they must have all felt very secure.
Just before we left, I tried to get a picture of the whooping cranes that were feeding in the distance – an adult and colt (with brownish feathers on the head and parts of the body). These are the birds we came to the area to see. All the other birds are a big bonus!
We headed for our first field trip…a Mustang Island boat tour (the topic of tomorrow’s post).
The Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge field trip was our second April visit to the place (I posted about our visit back in 2017: part 1, part 2). A new visitor center was under construction and the old one no longer had feeders (where we saw goldfinches last time) and the purple martin houses had been moved to another area, so we didn’t see them either. The field trip still started with a look around the visitor center grounds. It was a cool morning. There were several spring flowering trees (dogwood and redbud)…and birds flitting from the trees to the grass to the man-made structures.
We started around the auto tour route. There had been a lot of rain in the days before our field trip and the water level in the ponds was higher that I remembered. We also learned that because the area is tidal salt marsh, the water levels are not as easy to control as in some other refuges; the refuge management is challenged to maintain the marsh as sea-level is rising.
There were plenty of birds around: northern shovelers, red-winged black birds, green-winged teal, and mallards were a few I photographed.
There were relatively large numbers of great blue herons. They don’t nest at the refuge but come here for food.
There were also great and snowy egrets in mixed groups.
I took a sequence of a great egret landing.
There were bald eagles too. I photographed a scruffy looking juvenile settling on an almost submerged log.
The big surprise of the morning was a roost of black-crowned night herons. From the place we were standing…they were on the other side of large pond; they looked like fuzzy places in the trees…
I thought tent caterpillars at first! With binoculars and big camera lens, the birds were easy to identify. My husband provided a magnified/cropped image of one of the birds. There were over 70 birds roosting!
What a thrilling finale for a Bombay Hook field trip!
The last part of the field trip was a cruise on the bay. The first ‘sight’ was a lighthouse with scaffolding around it as we neared the dock on our bus.
Then we were off and looking for Peregrine Falcons under the bridge. We spotted several but there was only one that was positioned for pictures.
There were mud flats with Laughing Gulls,
An Osprey surveying the scene, and
A Great Blue Heron walking awkwardly in the mud.
There was an island that provide roosting sites for Great Blue Herons (7 of them in the foreground) and Roseate Spoonbills (8-10 of them in the background).
This is the best picture I got of the Roseate Spoonbills as we cam around their side of the island.
Brown Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, and laughing gulls were groups on the sandy beach.
What birds to you see in these two pictures? So you see the Green-winged teals (2 males and a female), Black-Necked Stilt (2), Great Egret, Laughing gulls.
As we headed back to the dock, there were Double-Crested cormorants on pilings we were passing
And a Laughing Gull settled on the highest point of our boat.
There were so many Brown Pelicans. It’s thrilling that their numbers have recovered from the brink of extinction caused by pesticide pollution!
Copyright © 2025, Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
Celebrating the whole of life....
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Copyright © 2025 Gwen Morrison. All rights reserved.
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