Saturday Birding

Spring is here! The trees are leafing out and the wildflowers are starting to bloom. The last several days have been beautiful -- sunny and pleasantly warm. I have no excuse for not have gotten out earlier in the week!

So we took a drive today, but saw very few birds. Another sign of Spring, alas! Right by the high school, I saw this meadow lark. I usually only see them flying away.

As we headed out along FM 362 (the back side of our larger loop), we saw this pair of Caracara (would that be a ParaCara?). They were very cooperative and let us take several pictures. But after I got out of the car, one of them got a bit nervous and flew away.

We saw several ducks and herons in a soggy field, but they were too far for pictures. The other sure sign of spring in my area was seeing a Scissor-tail flycatcher on the wing. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture.

King Ranch

This is the best part of our King Ranch tour. A pair of Crested Caracara. Not as clear as I would like through the tour bus window, but "OK".

We saw a few more while driving down here, but they either spooked when we stopped, or were flying and we couldn't get a clear shot.

As Stormy commented below, they had a young one on the ground that we didn't see untill we were under way. I fired off a shot, but it didn't turn out well.