High Island, TX - Part #2

Since the previous post on Wednesday, we have had several days of great birding. The small bird migration was still slow until a weather front came through on Friday and things picked up on Saturday.

Thursday morning we went to another Audubon site here at High Island called Smith Oaks. One of the big draws there is a rookery of Roseatte Spoonbills, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, and Double-crested Cormorants. There are hundreds of them nesting - almost on top of each other. It's a fascinating site - just a constant beehive of activity.

Rookery

 

Roseatte Spoonbills

 

Great Egret

 

Thursday afternoon we took another ride down the coast and took a few side streets. There are ponds and marshes where there are always interesting birds. We saw lots of Gulls, Terns, Willets, Plovers, and a seldom seen Wilson's Snipe.

Wilson's Snipe

 

Female American Golden Plover

 

Laughing Gulls

 

At the "Boy Scout Woods" Audubon site in High Island there is a long boardwalk that goes out into a marsh area. In addition to birds, there's no telling what else you might run across!

I mentioned in the previous post about the bleachers at the "Boy Scout Woods" location. Late in the afternoons they are pretty filled up. We went most afternoons and sat for an hour or so.

As I mentioned above, the smaller birds started coming in a lot more on Saturday. They are very hard to photograph because they always seem to be in and among the green leaves on the trees and flit from one spot to another. About time I can get focused on one, he's jumped to another limb or flew to another tree. There's always one bird that we're sure to see -- it's a "Whoops-he-flew". Here's a couple that I did manage to get. The first one, the Sulfur-bellied Flycatcher is a rarity in these parts -- he's primarily an Arizona bird.

Sulfur-bellied Flycatcher

 

Summer Tanager

 

One of LaVerne's favorites is a campground regular -- the Inca Dove.

 

Today (Sunday) we went to the High Island First Baptist church for a very good worship service. This is a very small church and everyone is really friendly. In fact, several folks (including the pastor & his wife) remembered us from last year. After church we rode into Winnie and ate lunch at Denny's. It was rainy all day - not fit for birding.

Back at camp, we packed up everything (between showers) and got the Jeep hitched up and ready for travel early in the morning, and watched the Braves game. Like last Monday, we have a long drive across I-10 tomorrow, this time headed east - we're going back to Dauphin Island, AL for our final week on this trip before heading home.