OMG, the Birds!

ROCKPORT/ARANSAS, TEXAS – You may recall that we were a bit disappointed at not finding many birds at one of America’s premier birding hot spots, Aransas. Do you remember Eddie Murphy signing “Looking for love in al the wrong places”? Well, substitute “birds” for “love.”

Our break came when we decided to go out on the water between the Aransas mainland and Matagorda Island and cruise around 10-12 small islands, sandbars and shell banks. Our guide was the estimable Capt. Tom Moore. His bread and butter is a well-known whooping crane tour, but he said that even with the cranes gone, there were plenty of great birds still out there, if you know where to look. And, indeed, he did. Tom is a solid naturalist who knows the whole region as well as the birds.

We were out for four hours Thursday morning with Capt. Tom. It was a beautiful, cool morning, and the small group with us were good company. We are very pleased we extended our stay in Rockport to take this outing.

So, to cut to the chase, here are some of the birds we saw, often in large numbers, some for the first time:

Caspian Tern

Royal Tern

Forster’s Tern

Least Tern

Sandwich Tern

Black Skimmer

Oystercatcher

Black-necked Stilt

Lesser Yellowlegs

Marbled Godwit

Ruddy Turnstone

Dunlin

Black-bellied Plover

White-winged Dove

Common Loon

Neo Tropic Cormorant

Magnificent Frigatebird

Large Great Blue Heron and American Egret rookeries

Roseate Spoonbill

Reddish Egret/including white morph

White Ibis

Glossy Ibis

White-tailed Hawk

Crested Caracara

Scarlet Tanager

and one beautiful Painted Bunting!

A portion of one of the rookeries!

 

Great Blue Heron shading fluffy feathered babies.

We’ve omitted birds like pelicans and some egrets that are in profusion in the region. And we saw large numbers of dolphins in pods with babies.

It was a great outing, but we had to move fast after that to gather the dogs from their excellent grooming by Teresa at Groomingdales (necessary for our being able to be on a boat for 4 hours and also because they needed baths desperately) and head inland for San Antonio. Along the way we passed through the largest wind farm we’ve ever seen (in San Patricio), reminding us of another Texas superlative: Number One in wind energy production.

Turning inland marked a milestone in this road trip: we’ve aimed northward and begun the long trek home to Vermont!

 

Harbor near Capt. Tom's dock.

Great Blue Village