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Sunday, February 12, 2017

Birding On a Shoestring At the Lower Rio Grande Valley In Coastal Waters


                                                                       Reddish Egret


                                                                          Ditto


                                                                          Ditto


                                                                     Redhead Pair


                                                             Bonaparte's Gull (top)
                                                           Ring-billed Gull (Bottom)

                                             
                                                                     Reddish Egret


                                                                     Reddish Egret


                                                                          Ditto


                                                                    Snowy Egret


                                                                  Redheads in Flight


                                                                    Female Redhead


                                                                     Snowy Egret


                                                                          Ditto


                                                                        Ditto

                                         

                                                                     Tri-colored Heron


01-23-17

This portion of the Lower Rio Grande Valley journey encompassed a couple of places on the coast, one of which I had never been.

These birds are old friends, and even though more will be shown to you later, these are some of my favorite birds, especially since I happen to be a heron specialist.  In general, water birds are
intriguing to me, as they sometimes have to be wily and cunning in order to get a meal.

Just as an example, the Snowy Egret has yellow feet for that purpose.  The feet resemble worms in the water, and this bird has a natural instinct to lift and move its feet in a circular motion in order to attract fish and small crustaceans, as well as swirling them to the surface.  Isn't nature wonderful with some built-in ways to achieve the feeding goal?

The Reddish Egret is a canopy fisher, as you can see with its wings raised above its head.  It also tends to run about in the water in order to stir fish to move toward the surface.

Ducks are also some of my favorites, having grown up in an area where there were and still are, water birds a-plenty.

The pictures of the Redheads will thrill you as much to view them, as it did for me to take the pictures.

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