April 23, 2018

Josey Ranch Park in Carrollton, Texas

April 23, 2018/ Gwen Morrison

The baby ducklings I posted about yesterday were the spring highlight for me at the part….but I was pleased with other sites too.

The buttercups in the grass…and the serendipity of catching a butterfly in flight between flowers.

The male grackles were facing off…asserting their dominance.

There was a scissor-tailed flycatcher that posed on a post for picture.

I hadn’t realized how similar they looked to mockingbirds that are also in the area….except for the vary long tail.

I saw two pairs of ducks (other than the mallards) that are probably getting ready to leave for their breeding ground further north: gadwalls (photo is of the male)

And northern shovelers. Both were probably more numerous in the area a few weeks ago.

There was a squirrel that did not look happy for me to walking nearby as

An American coot that didn’t seem to know I was there at all.

My round-trip walk was about 2 miles…good exercise…and a good outing for some photography.

November 21, 2017

Estero Llano Grande State Park

November 21, 2017/ Gwen Morrison

We stopped at Estero Llano Grande State Park after our walk around Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. The day was still relatively cold and getting damper…but there were still birds active. A Snowy Egret was actively searching for lunch.

We also saw Blue Winged Teal. The males are easier to identify than the females!

A Scarlet Tanager posed on a lamp post across the water. It was far enough way that I had to maximize the zoom on my camera – not the best picture but clearly a scarlet tanager.

A Tricolored Heron was fishing the pond

As were the White-Faced Ibis.

By now the Northern Shovelers

And American Coots have become familiar to me.

The Least Grebes were a little too far away for a good picture in the dim light of the cloudy day…but their silhouette is distinctive.

We were a little damp, cold and hungry by the time we made a short hike. We decided to find someplace for a late lunch and discovered The Smoking Oak in Mercedes, Texas. Great barbeque!

November 20, 2017

Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge

November 20, 2017/ Gwen Morrison

The second day of the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, we did not have any formal field trips scheduled. It was cool and cloudy – not a good day for butterflies, so we shifted our plans back to a focus on birds and headed for the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.Some of the first things we saw on our hike was insects – still with the cold: two dragonflies

Two caterpillars, and

A queen butterfly…not fluttering about.

2017 11 IMG_5383.jpg — I was pleased to see a land snail on one of the small trees. We’d seen a lot of shells on the ground (i.e. dead) at both Las Estrellas and Rancho Lomitas. We were told that sometimes roadrunners get hungry enough to crack the shells against a rock to get to the tasty morsel inside.

2017 11 IMG_5393.jpg — Ball Moss is something I had never seen. It is like Spanish Moss – also abundant on trees in the refuge.

Then we saw some duck: Northern Shovelers and Blue winged teal.

2017 11 IMG_5443.jpg — A group of chachalaca were in the trees beside the trail. It was hard to get pictures through the foliage and branches…we’d get better pictures on another day.

As we walked across an empty parking lot, we spotted a kiskadee on an electrical line

And then a flash of orange in the trees – an Altamira Oriole was on the move. It eventually made it way to the electrical pole as well.

2017 11 IMG_5479.jpg — The refuge has a swinging bridge through tree tops. On the day we were there, the birds were hunkered down but it was still work the climb and the look down into foliage.

At a bird blind, I finally got some good pictures of the green jay.

We made our way back to the visitor center and had a snack on our way to nearby Estero Llano State Park (topic of tomorrow's post). In this area of Texas there are a series of state and federal lands that make a wild life corridor…more meaningful than each standalone park or refuge.