Snowy Egret with fish after some other birds tried to steal its hard-won catch
Had some good sightings today, including 4 rare yellow-green vireos at Sabal Palm. While looking for the vireos, we came across a bobcat on the trail. That’s the third bobcat I’ve seen in six days. There’s evidently two groups of yellow-green vireos and about six birds altogether. Though they’re not particularly difficult to find, it’s almost impossible to photograph them because they are usually pretty high in the trees and are constantly moving. The masked duck is still there, but was in the middle of the resaca today, too far out to photograph. I was looking once more for the Central American speckled racer, which I failed to see. One was seen in the butterfly garden. It’s just a matter of time until I find one and hopefully photograph it.
On South Padre Island, there are new broods of black-bellied whistling ducks and black-necked stilts. The stilts are probably no more than 2 days old. We are seeing more baby birds on SPI than ever, with lots of stilts, black-bellied whistling ducks, clapper rails and moorhens. Also today, one of the purple gallinules was spotted for the first time in 2 weeks. That’s leading to speculation that we may actually have nesting purple gallinules. That would be fantastic! I’ve never seen baby gallinules.
Other than the stilts and whistling ducks on SPI, I also saw: clapper rails (adults and babies), 2 American oystercatchers, 2 juvenile and 1 adult roseate spoonbill, several mottled ducks, great blue herons, tri-colored herons, a reddish egret, about 15 or 16 cattle egrets, great egret, numerous tri-colored herons and one little blue heron morphing from all-white juvenile plumage to adult slate-gray plumage, 2 least bitterns, moorhens and snowy egrets.
