Laguna Madre Low Tide

This for a couple of Facebook-adverse friends who complain I do not post writing anymore. True. Willie Nelson once commented that playing music is fun, writing songs is hard work. Well, taking and editing photos is fun.

Today was one of the lowest tides I have seen in a while. The weather was sweet. No excuse not to be in it. We went to the World Birding Center boardwalk with Jerry and Roseanne, friends that we first met at the Alamo Inn six or eight years ago. Good company and Jerry still has really good eyes and a gift for remembering bird I.D. markers - that shit I used to have and lost over the ravages of time. Iffy vision? No problem, hang out with Hawkeye. 

The mud flats were exposed far out and the birds tend to hang out at the perimeter. Sometimes that heavy, shoulder aching lens I pack around can make it seem like everything is close. Sometimes the birds are close, but they seldom are. This is what was actually between us and the waterfowl. This why their feather detail is sometimes a little fuzzy.

Enough whining. Below, Reddish Egret in foreground, mostly Royal Terns, Brown Pelicans and White Pelicans. It makes it easy to see how much larger the White Pelicans are. The Brown Pelicans are strictly salt water birds. Those White Pelicans will migrate north, to maybe nest on Albert Lea Lake, kettle up into the blue prairie summer skies and drift over to fish off the front shore of 1410 Oakwood on quiet Sunday mornings. Which do you suppose I favor?

Caspian Terns

Ring-billed Gull - first year

We spent an hour or two at the end on the boardwalk catching up on the past year and identifying birds for people who really don't give a rat's ass what the names are. We continued back on the boardwalk, getting some really nice looks at a Northern Waterthrush, which is not a thrush at all, but a Warbler. This bird should not be in the U.S. in winter, but in Central America. Sometimes birds just cannot read field guides or maps. I have taken a couple of photos earlier of this individual bird, but today was the best looks. 

As we were leaving the Center for lunch at Padre Brewing I saw this Loggerhead Shrike beating the hell out of a worm. It was fairly close, but brightly back lit and I am not a good enough photographer to compensate for that ..... so for today, he doesn't get eyes.

-Gunnar