There are two pictures in my mind: first of course is the
image of a new bird on our life list, a purple gallinule, second the robin blue
color of snowy egrets eggs. One I can share and the other I have but our camera
is so poor that it’s hard to see the egg.
We have always wanted to see a purple gallinule but they are
a summertime bird here on the coastal bend of Texas, so it was a surprise when
the birder mentioned that there were three purple gallinules feeding below the
second platform.
We raced there only to miss them and so we went back and
forth from viewing platform to viewing platform only seeing common gallinules,
(common marsh hens). Another birder stopped to ask us if we had seen any
warblers and she told us that the purple gallinules were moving in and out of
the cattails.
So we went back and Renita spotted one barely visible in the
high reeds. Luckily they both moved out and so we watched them for quite a
while, as they moved in and out of the weeds. It’s been a while since we had a
new life bird, and to see the bright purple head and iridescent sheen of their
bodies was special.
Of course there are other images, a blue indigo flitting in
a tree. Another is the bright color of a summer tanager. Of course the sight of
hundreds of rosettes and snowy egrets nesting and squawking and fighting for a
place on the Rookery comes to mind.
It gives us a glimpse of what a nesting colony of dinosaurs
must have been and birds are really dinosaurs that made it through the great
extinction. I wondered if the herds of dinosaurs were surrounded by predators
just as the Rookery at High Island is surrounded by alligators and gar fish. It’s
a noisy place and the dinosaur nests must have been also.
We are often asked if we have favorite places and we have
been blessed to have so many. High Island, Texas and the Rookery is definitely
one of them! It’s a place we hope to return to again and again. Clear skies
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