Thursday - Birding Aransas on the Skimmer

Sorry, I've been delayed on this last post of our Fulton/Rockport trip. On Thursday, we joined Captain Tommy Moore on the Skimmer for a water-side view of the Aransas Wildlife Refuge. It was a great trip (as usual). We didn't see a lot of Whoopers, and those we did see were at a distance, but they all decided to fly, so I got a few good flight pics. It's early in the season, and last year was particularly bad for the whoopers (mostly due to drought and shortage of blue crabs). I think they lost 23 birds last year.

On the way to the refuge and on the way back, we often see a lot of other birds -- I was able to add three new birds to the life list -- I even have pictures! (Some are not so good). One bird we saw a lot of and that is new to our list is the Dunlin -- they seemed to be everywhere. I got this great pic of one flying.

We also saw Royal Terns (as opposed to Caspians). The main difference is that the bill is more orange than red. This is another new addition to the life list. I love their "hair do's" -- reminds me of Groucho Marx.

And the last "new" bird is the horned lark. These were at a bit of a distance from the boat and they were running across an open stretch of land, so the pic is not so good -- but it works for documentation. ;-)

Captain Tommy is a great birder, with a great sense of humor. He makes a point to identify all sorts of birds along the way -- not just the whoopers. For example, he reminded us that the American Oyster Catcher is misnamed. It's not like it's all that hard to "catch" oysters.

Kingfishers are common around water -- though I'm more used to seeing them inland. They have such a prominent crest shape that they are easily identified on a post or wire, but not necessarily when flying. Fortunately, I saw this one on a post first.

Something new that I learned from our esteemed guide. There are two kinds of cormorants in our area: Double Crested and Neotropic. The differences according to Sibley's are mostly a little white at the corner of the eye. I wasn't particularly sure how to tell them apart. Captain Tommy pointed out that the Neotropics are darker and smaller. There are both in this picture.

If you've viewed this blog in the past, you'll know that I'm especially fond of birds of prey. Most of the "hawks" that I saw were at a pretty good distance. At first I thought this bird was a hawk of some sort (seen from a distance without optics), but it turns out it's a Black Crowned Night Heron. I've seen one before, but this is my first chance at a photo.

Usually, we see a lot of Ospreys in the area. We saw a few, but most were far away, flying or the boat was moving. This was my best osprey shot of the day.

But my best sighting of the day -- even better than the flying whoopers (IMO) was this Peregrine Falcon. This one was on a nesting platform, so I'm hoping she has a nest there -- but maybe it's just a lunch stop.








Okay, I saved the best till last. We saw about three sets of whoopers this time around. One set was a family. The bird with the brown splotches is the juvenile.

And finally, we saw a pair of whoopers, who also flew. Here they are, below.

Western Canada by Train - Day 1

A portion of our trip to Canada included a two-day train trip from Vancouver to Banff. We were in a "domed" car, which means that we sat at the top of a two level car (the dining area was on the bottom). The top part of the train car was domed glass which, combined with the height, allowed for excellent views. Unfortunately, it did not necessarily make for excellent photographs.

There were several reasons for this. One was the glass -- reflective and curved. A more common reason was that we were constantly moving, and along the tracks were old telephone (or perhaps even telegraph) poles and of course trees. I took over 500 shots on this trip -- here is an example of what a lot of them looked like.

OK, I'll try not to show too many of these, though there is one more below.

If we were to count up how many birds of a given species, probably the two that would come to the top are Bald Eagles and Ospreys. (OK, and Canada Geese and probably Common Mergansers.) Along the train tracks, however, we were able to see a lot of nesting Eagles and Ospreys. Take a look at this Eagle's nest -- when you compare it to the length of the pine needles, you can get an idea of how huge it, and the bird on it, are.

This next shot is one of my most disap- pointing shots of the whole trip, and I plan to inflict it upon you, regardless. [grin] This had the potential to be a great shot, even through the telephone wires. Unfortunately, because we were moving, and I was trying so hard to take shots quickly, I used autofocus on my camera (something, I usually avoid). Well -- you can see the results with this Bald Eagle.

The Osprey is a "fish eagle" much like the Bald Eagle, though they are often listed as a separate species. I heard once on a PBS nature program that fish eagles are usually black and white. Like the Bald Eagle (ok, it's really a dark brown), the Osprey is mostly "black and white" in coloring. I especially liked this nest with all the colorful strings hanging down -- even ospreys and eagles like colorful, soft bedding for their chicks!

This next shot gives an idea of the territory we were going through. Transportation -- both trains and vehicular, travel through the lowest parts of the mountains. So you will often see a stream to your left or right. Here you get the tracks, the road and the stream all in one shot.








In my next post, I will include a lot of "geology shots" for all my rock-hound and geologist friends. But suffice to say that there are some areas in the mountains that were difficult or dangerous to put a track through, so tunnels were often necessary. Here's a spot where we had a nice curve coming up to a tunnel ahead.

All through the trip, we would travel along a stream and sometimes come to a wide spot, where there were lakes. I kept seeing these black and white birds floating in the water. It took me a while to identify them as common mergansers -- another bird for our life list.

Day 2 - The Skimmer

This is the second time we've taken the Skimmer bird-watching boat tour of Aransas. It's also the second time we've gotten great sights of Whooping Cranes. But the cool thing about this tour is that Captain Tommy Moore is a real birder -- and he points out a lot of other birds along the way. I only have a few pictures, but a lot of birds. Those displayed in the photos are highlighted in Bold Red print.

While I don't have pictures of all the birds we saw, and I tried to check only those I saw, my list included: Eared Grebe,

White and Brown Pelicans, Great Blue Heron and Great Egret, White and White-faced Ibis, Roseate Spoonbill, Black and Turkey Vultures, Gadwall and Mottled Duck, Northern Pintail, Common Goldeneye,

an Osprey,












Crested Caracara, Sanhill Crane, Whooping Crane, Black Bellied Plover, American Oyster- catcher, Long-billed Cerlew, Ruddy Turnstone, Laughing Gulls (of course), and Forster's Tern.