Birding on a Shoestring: South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center, Part 1

On Friday, March 21, 2020, the band of birding and studious pupils-to-be for our National Wildlife Rehabilitator's Conference were on the road for South Padre Island, Texas by 1000 hrs.  We were several hours late in leaving to beat the traffic, but we paid for it later.  Normally, prior Texas jaunts have taken 12-13 hours, but we didn't pull in to our hotel until 0230 hrs. Tuesday morning.

This meant that we didn't begin birding until much later on Saturday.  We began our search for South Texas birds after a good meal, starting off at the Birding and Nature Center, later wandering over to the SPI Convention Center.  There were no good songbirds there, but we did get better photos of the rarer Reddish Egret and the Black Skimmer.

02-22-20

                                                                        Brown Pelican
                             

                                                                      Reddish Egret

                                                                     Black Skimmer

                                                                       White Ibis

                                                                 Tri-colored Heron

                                                                   Great Blue Heron

                                                                   Roseate Spoonbill

                                                                         Killdeer

Some of these photos were obtained via the SPI Convention Center property.  We also viewed Redheads, Laughing Gulls, Purple Martin, Roseate Spoonbill, Snowy Egret, and many other interesting individuals.  It was a full afternoon and we worked on obtaining photos between noon and 1700 hrs, which is good for semi-rested travelers.