A good day birding today. We had a target pond we'd never been to and a target bird we haven't seen yet this year. We got them both! The pond is in the town of Holiday Beach, which isn't even on the map. A little exploring, and we found it, surrounded by trees and rushes, with a few grassy openings. Lots of cover and food for birds, and a few clear spots to view from. This is the best pond we've ever seen here. Ducks, herons, more night herons than we've ever seen in one place, egrets, ibis, more moorhens than we've ever seen in one place, coots, grebes, siskin. Alive with birds. Our target bird was the fulvous whistling duck. There are plenty of black bellied whistling ducks in South Texas, but the fulvous is rarely seen outside Florida. Ten minutes of watching and suddenly there they were, right in front of us. Fulvous whistling ducks.
Good birding on the way there and back too. Osprey, kingfisher, shrike, doves, spoonbills, black bellied whistlers, gadwall, Judy spotted a couple american oystercatchers from the highway so we went back and got them for the first time this year. Got a gull-billed tern for the first time ever.
It was a good birding day.
