A Trip to Port Aransas with Pam and Roy

As we watched the birds at the birding center, a local birding volunteer asked me what kind of an egret was sitting on a post. I answered that I thought it was a snowy egret. He said that I was wrong, that it was a white morphed reddish egret. He directed my attention to the black legs and feet and described how most herons and egrets stand still and wait for food to swim nearby. Reddish egret, on the other hand, hunt in a drunken walk and often run to their prey. I thanked him for the information and now I feel good about telling the difference between the eight different white wading birds. They include the snowy egret

, (notice the yellow feet), the great egret, (yellow legs), the white morphed reddish, (with a two-color beak and black legs/feet), and the juvenile little blue heron.

Pam and Roy have arrived from the frozen wastelands of Iowa and are here for the next two months. Renita and I are so happy to see them after a three-year hiatus while Roy battled a long-term illness. He is on the mend now and so there will be more posts on fishing.

On the way to Port Aransas Renita stopped the car so that I could try to take pictures of the belted kingfishers that perch on the power lines while waiting for fish. My pictures are ok but I need to have better light to get great ones.We had a good day birding, with the usual sights at the LeonaBelle Birding center.

Besides the giant alligator, a juvenile dark morphed reddish tried to confuse me, and we spotted a brown form that we thought was a nutria but turned out to be an empty beer bottle

. All of us enjoyed our lunch at our favorite restaurant, Virginias, and we walked on the newly repaired south Jetty. Several big ships and a Coast Guard Cutter headed inbound to Corpus Christi.

One of them was accompanied by several dolphins but they were not going airborne as the prow of the unladed ship prevented the good wake for their leaps.

Omicron has passed through our park and all of our friends have now recovered, and out of isolation. One of the ways we celebrated was to hold our annual Blue Lagoons Craft show. It featured eight different crafts/artists. Unfortunately, the show was poorly attended due to the cold keeping most people indoors. Still, it gave us a good opportunity to set up our displays in preparation for next months Gulf Coast Gem and Mineral show in Robstown, Texas. That is one of our three big shows and this year we have expanded from four to six tables. That is because we now have increased our jewelry from fourteen to twenty display cases, (covid did not stop our continued love of lapidary and jewelry making and our displays were getting too crowded). It was a good day and a good start to the month, and we look forward to the many outings. Clear skies

ps we did spot the two whooping cranes but they were far away at Charles Pasture.