Got the pink flamingo! Flamingos are not on the Texas bird list, but one got blown off-course from Mexico and landed on an oyster shell island in Aransas Bay. He spends his days standing around with white pelicans and cormorants. The Wharf Cat whooping crane tour boat goes right past him every day. Had our best whooping crane day ever. Saw more than thirty of them. I know how many because I asked the tour narrator how many we saw, since my counting skills don’t go past: one, two, many. Never was any good with numbers. Greater flamingo!
We saw ten percent of the world population of whooping cranes.
After the boat trip, we drove down the Fulton Beach road to find the flock of redheads that had a female black scoter in it. We found it. That’s another bird that is not on the Texas bird list. Black scoter. We’re racking up the out-of-range birds here.
I printed a list of all the birds that are possible here in the winter, marked off the ones we’ve seen already, and have gone on a campaign to find the ones we haven’t seen yet in our fifteen years of visiting here.
Tomorrow, the northern gannet. It’s a pelagic bird, but we’re told we can see it from the beach if we know what to look for. Some local birders are helping us by telling us what to look for. Later, to the Corpus Christi dump for the lesser black-backed gull. Still on the lookout for the stilt sandpiper. It is proving to be difficult. We’re told that even though stilt sandpiper is on the list, it’s not really here in the winter. We’ll keep looking. Maybe we’ll find another bird blown off course.
Can you find the flamingo in this picture?
