On the last evening of the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, we drove ourselves to the South Padre Island mudflat where we met our tour group for photographing the sunset. We drove out onto the mudflat – trying to avoid puddles.

It was well before sunset, and I enjoyed the antics of a Reddish Egret in the late afternoon light. The bird seemed to be finding tidbits in the small pool. It was a windy afternoon which caused the head and neck feathers to move about.

I was using my bridge camera (Canon Powershot SX70 HS) on a monopod (so I only had one thing to clean mud/sand from at the end of the evening). I kept trying to get a bird in flight flying across the sun…failed, but it was still fun trying. I always like to see the color change and the sun gets lower. The mosaic below is in the order the images were taken; click on any of them to see a larger version.