Tuesday 1/12, 2021
The much anticipated boat tour to see Whoopers! Yahoo! Only it was severely cold, as in: shirt, sweater, hoodie, heavy jacket, hood, knit cap, gloves and hands in pockets, cold. Ed and I arrived at the dock in plenty of time but the boat captain was a little late. He couldn't find his microphone, or some such problem. Also we were supposed to have our temperatures taken but the thermometer wouldn't work.
What would work was hot coffee in big carafes. I had a well appreciated cup on the chilly ride over to Aransas National Wildlife preserve. But all the time I was wondering, is it okay to go on top now? We were below, in seats on the boat lower level. There were about ten rows of eight or so seats per row, and our visibility was halfway decent through plexiglass windows. But it was just as cold down there as it had been outside the boat, so why not go on top?
Soon the captain paused the boat and I followed the other people up. (Is it called topside?) There was a big, flat watery land out there--all mud flats and marshes and tons of white birds. We saw all kinds of birds, which the captain identified easily. Only occasionally did he have to grab a pair of binoculars for a better look.
Tricolored Heron
Since my water bird ID skills are marginal at best, all I could see for sure were Caspian Terns, ducks of various sorts, pelicans and sandpipers. Lots and lots of Dowicher, although I'm still not exactly sure what a Dowitcher looks like. My understanding is they probe into the sand like "sewing machines", but my mental picture of that had been birds with heads moving up and down rapidly. I saw lots of little birds probing the sand, but it wasn't with the methodical rapidity that Pete Dunne's books imply it should be.
Egrets, Tricolored Heron, White Ibis
I did at least catch a Harrier flying low over the marshes. It was a male, and it surprised me with the whitish appearance--the ones I'd seen in Plano were always very gray and ghostly. But this was as white as a gull, only, of course, shaped like a hawk. Cool, very.
Eventually we saw big, fluffy feather pillows in the distance. Whooping Cranes.
We watched two of them chase off a third--the captain could tell they were getting ready to fly by how they led off with their neck, stretching, stretching, stretching....eventually, there they went!
While we were watching cranes, one of the women noticed a largish, dark bird dart out of the bushes and catch a crab, then dart back into cover to eat it. After a long, long, while of staring at the spot, my eyes finally focused correctly and I had it! But was it a Clapper Rail or a King Rail? I don't remember what they said and I sure couldn't tell from the pictures:
After we returned, we just hung out with our friends and had a lovely, relaxing afternoon.
Our campsite from the fishing pier:
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