But
without the signs to tell you what you’re looking at.
Driving
past game ranches in South Texas. We might spot an Axis Deer, native to
India.
Or
an Oryx from Southern Africa.
American
Bison and Texas Longhorn from the American West.
With
some small deer in front of them.
Tiny
little antelope
Or
this.
It’s
not an ostrich. It’s not a cassowary or an emu. It could be a Rhea,
a South American bird.
I
misidentified a bird.
That
least bittern I showed you yesterday.
It’s
not a least bittern. It’s a young green heron that doesn’t have its adult
colors yet.
Here
is what the least bittern looks like.
(Not
my photo.)
Completely
different from the juvenile green heron, right?
So,
as I said yesterday, the least bittern is the most difficult to spot of the
three birds I described. Most years we don’t see one at all, and it turns
out we haven’t yet this year either!
Out
on Padre Island.
White
Ibis.
They’re
a southern thing. Conspicuous. Easy to find within their range.
Green
Heron.
They
have a broader distribution (but you don’t see them very often if you’re not
looking for them). They like water edges.
And
Least Bittern.
You’ll
hardly ever see this one, even when looking. It looks like about the same
range map as the green heron, but it’s generally secretive in marshes. We
only spot one once every few years.
Adjacent
to a water treatment plant. A lake for the effluent. And a wild area
preserved in the middle of the city. Good walking. Good birding.
Great
Egret.
Yellow-crowned
Night Heron.
Black-crowned
Night Heron.
Great
Blue Heron.
Anhinga.
Showed
them the mudflats.
There
were birds.
And
cars. Driving out on the mudflats is okay. The “mud” is mostly firm
sand. Leaving the car sitting while the tide comes in and goes back out
is not though. Remember standing at the edge of the ocean as kids?
Stand in one spot and let the waves wash back and forth over your feet.
That horizontal wave motion creates a vertical object motion. You slowly
sink into the sand. A guy’s car sank, and the undercarriage was resting
on the sand. Help had arrived in the form of shovels to try to dig the
wheels out. They had been at it for quite a while, but that wasn’t going
to solve his problem.
We
got to make his day a little better (or suck a little less).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAt-kvxxtRA
In
the evening light.
Several
hundred of these parrots live free in the Rio Grande Valley. They may
have come from escaped cage birds, or they may have moved up from their natural
range in northern Mexico. Nobody knows for sure, but nonetheless it’s a
vibrant population that gathers each evening to roost.
Dried
twigs. No leaves.
But
now the Huisache tree (wee-sah-chee) is beginning to bloom.
Unleashing
its fragrance to the dry desert landscape.
The
Blackhawk will come across the border into the U.S., but just a little.
It
is an everyday bird in West Mexico.
