Insects Lake Sommerville
In addition to birds, photography of insects has greatly enhanced my NEDs (nature exploration days)!! Was pleased to find 6 examples of my favorite beetle yesterday!
Lake Sommerville
Spent some time under a tree next to Lake Sommerville yesterday. Had 500-600 White pelicans, a smattering of gulls (Franklin’s & Ring billed) and 5 species of shorebirds For the 2024 Shorebird class: Can you ID the shorebirds and tell me why? (Feel free to review Eric’s fine table)
Hornsby
8 species of shorebird at Hornsby this morning, including 2 Dunlin.
Amar Ayyash The Gull Guide
I’m excited that “The Gull Guide” by Amar Ayash will be coming out next week!!! I bought mine some time ago!! If you are a gull aficionado, or at least gull curious, you can listen to Amar discussing the book on 2 different podcasts recently. And it just so happens that I had my first…
Cedar Point Birds in Flight
In addition to auxarus festivus, I also worked on some birds in flight yesterday at Cedar Point.
Midges Cedar Point
I enjoyed the sunrise at Cedar point on Lake Buchanan yesterday and with the approaching Festivus season (“the festivus for the rest of us”) it was nice to find many of these beautiful Axarus festivus (as I’m told by iNat) a variety of midge.
Dunlin Hornsby
I was pleased to find a Dunlin at Hornsby this morning. One of the shorebirds I needed for that location. This got me thinking about my all-time Hornsby list and which shorebirds I have not seen there. First table is the 34 species of shorebird I have seen at Hornsby, 2nd is shorebirds I have…
Kingfisher vs Grackles
Here’s some interesting bird behavior. The first photo is a composite of 3 images. Grackles were harassing a kingfisher to try to kleptoparasitise his fish. The kingfisher would stay low to the water and when the grackles got close, he would hit the water, pausing for an instant and the grackles would over-fly him. Then…
Snipe
Here’s one I don’t recall seeing so boldly out in the open before, much less photographed in gorgeous sunlight!!
Shorebirds Field Trip Corpus
Regretfully we were a little short on SHORE for he shorebirds class field trip to corpus over the weekend. But I think we enjoyed it none the less and ended up with around 20 shorebird species!! Highlights for me were seeing a Cassin’s Kingbird at Blucher park, more Red Knots than I’ve ever seen ~20,…