We went on a birding quest. South Padre Island. There is an owl there that is not supposed to be there. A tiny little Flammulated Owl. Presumably he goes out to hunt each night, but every morning he is in the same group of trees next to the Convention Center. He parks himself way deep in the foliage, looks exactly like tree bark, and holds perfectly still sleeping all day.
When we arrived, there was a group of people gathered around the spot, all starting intently through their binoculars, but none of them actually seeing the bird. We joined the group and scanned the scrub. After 20 minutes, someone found him and put a scope on him. We never did see him through the binoculars, but I got to look through the scope and get a full view of his face. Life bird!
I couldn’t get a picture of him. Here is one I lifted off the internet of a sleeping bird.
Ours wasn’t nearly this exposed.
Then we headed for the other end of the island. There has been a Black-legged Kittiwake flying around with the Forster’s Terns at the jetty. When we got there, the only Forster’s Terns we could see were flying all the way out at the far end. This is different. There is not group of people with binoculars standing around pointing. We’re the only ones there with binoculars. We put on our jetty shoes and started out.
It takes a lot of concentration for people our age to walk on the jetty. No carefree boulder hopping for us; we’re watching our step! So out we go, watching our step, stopping periodically to see if we’re close enough to the feeding terns to pick out a kittiwake yet. Not yet. Keep going.
Almost all the way to the end of the jetty, terns still in the distance, I look down at three laughing gulls. Make that two laughing gulls and a black-legged kittiwake standing on the jetty!
A nice pirate ship in the sunset on our way home.
