Our first official bird walk started at 8:30. We had 5 folks on the walk, including my sister-in-law and her friend (Dixie and Bobbye), and saw 40 species of birds. It was so foggy we couldn’t see all the way across Pintail Lake! After seeing hundreds of Great Egrets and Neo-tropic Cormorants on Willow Lake last week, we didn’t see any today. The rain last week left both Pintail Lake and Willow Lake very muddy. We did get far-off looks at Black-crowned Night-Heron and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, as well as Ringed Kingfisher, Vermillion Flycatcher, Tree Swallows, Common Yellowthroat, lots of Orange-crowned and Yellow Rumped Warblers.
Walking through the fog
Altamira Oriole
Golden-fronted Woodpecker
After lunch Mark and I went out again for 2 1/2 hours. We saw a few different birds including lots of soaring American White Pelicans with a large flock of Anhinga’s, a Peregrine Falcon with several Turkey Vultures, Belted Kingfisher and Couch’s Kingbird.
American White Pelicans with Anhinga's
Couch's Kingbird
Long-billed Thrasher
Northern Cardinal
The visitor center closes at 4:00 but the park is open till dusk. Dixie and Bobbye came back at 4:00 and we went to the Hawk tower. We saw a few more birds including Osprey, Red-tailed Hawk, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Clay-colored Thrush, and hundreds of Turkey Vultures. On the way back to our cars we saw several javalina.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
After the fog burned off and the sun came out, we saw several butterflies.
Reakirt's Blue
Little Yellow
Gray Cracker
Good grief, you two must be awfully fit to go out 3 times -- the first two were longer hikes, right? One hike would do me in!
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