{"id":42,"date":"2006-04-20T19:13:39","date_gmt":"2006-04-20T19:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/littleyear.com\/?p=42"},"modified":"2011-05-01T18:37:56","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T23:37:56","slug":"laguna-del-morte-192-205","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/?p=42","title":{"rendered":"laguna del morte [192 – 205]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Osprey with digitally docked tail<\/p><\/div>\n

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First thing today, we checked out the South Padre Island Convention Center, which is supposed to be a good spot. It was. It’s right on the water, and strolling in the sands we saw BLACK SKIMMERS and a BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER. It would have been nice to see a skimmer actually skimming, but we did see it actually being black (and white and orange), which is something.<\/p>\n

Plenty of birders were ogling the shrubbery near the center, so we joined them, managing to see a BLACKPOLL WARBLER, a SCARLET TANAGER, and a TENNESSEE WARBLER. In a year or two, the convention center is going to become the World Birding Center, which sounds pretty highfalutin’. But what that means beyond a gift shop, I can’t tell you. At present, though, they’ve built a nice walkway through the marsh to the water, and that’s where I digiscoped the osprey. There’s a large water tower nearby, and a nice old couple pointed out a small hawk perched high up on one of its railings. With a scope, it proved to be a PEREGRINE FALCON.<\/p>\n

The rest of the day was devoted to Laguna Atascosa NWR. As soon as we came in, I was lucky enough to see a green jay, a species I had missed yesterday. We explored the area near the visitor center, and sat for a while in a low, dark blind. There Pole saw the species she missed yesterday, the golden-fronted woodpecker. We also got a WHITE-TIPPED DOVE. At a spot nearby, we saw what we first thought was a Brown Thrasher, but after considering range and the bill, we decided it was a LONG-BILLED THRASHER.
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A panting bobcat viewed from air-conditioned comfort<\/p><\/div>\n

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We hopped back in the car, and the rest of the day was spent driving around the refuge, which is pretty damn huge. At one point, Pole spotted a large feline dashing across the road in front of us. We caught up with it and followed it as it slowly trotted along. It proved to be a bobcat. And boy, did it look miserable, emaciated and panting in the hot Texas sun. (Need I say that it was another blistering day?) The refuge had seen better times, too. There’s been a bad drought in the area, and many of the lagoons and ponds were dry as a bone. We wondered what the bobcat was eating, and sadly watched it disappear into the scrub. I hope it killed something, because \u2014 sorry to be mammal-centric \u2014 it was worth a hundred thrashers.<\/p>\n

As we drove around the refuge, we stopped here and there, picking up new bird one at a time, including:<\/p>\n

NORTHERN BOBWHITE
\nWILSON\u2019S PLOVER
\nBROWN-CRESTED FLYCATCHER
\nCURVE-BILLED THRASHER
\nWHITE-TAILED HAWK<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I missed two of these: the bobwhite disappeared before I got out the the car, and the thrasher was on Pole’s side, and I could never get a bead on it.<\/p>\n

The last bird of the day was the wonderful PLAIN CHACHALACA, which we saw on a last walk around the visitor center. We saw another as we drove out, and heard its crazy call, which goes — well, you can guess. This day added 14 birds to the list, 9 lifers for Pole, 9 (with the jay) for me.<\/p>\n

And here, for misery’s sake, is another shot of the bobcat:<\/p>\n

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First thing today, we checked out the South Padre Island Convention Center, which is supposed to be a good spot. It was. It’s right on the water, and strolling in the sands we saw BLACK SKIMMERS and a BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER. It would have been nice to see a skimmer actually skimming, but we did see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifers","category-list","category-other-animals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":627,"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/littleyear.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}