Thu 1/19
To Daingerfield State Park
Easy to find and navigate, but there's some definite highway noise.
Mandatory out-the-window picture
We got here pretty quickly, just at about three hours if I recall correctly. But I was feeling so miserable that it really didn't matter. Ii managed to force myself to take Molly on a little walk along the lake (aka pond), where we saw a very brightly colored pine warbler, some bluebirds, and another unknown bird or two. Probably juncos or titmice.
The pine warbler was foraging off the ground, and I didn't believe my eyes at the time. but consultation of my second bird book implied that was it, and they do sometimes act like that. It was awfully pretty, and very pleasant to see a bird up close that one usually sees only in a glimpse at the very top of a very tall tree.
When we walked out on the fishing pier in the pond, five male mallard ducks swam up in a tight grouping. Quanking and fussing at me for food, which I had none. Funny thing I didn't realize about mallards (and probably all ducks with brightly colored heads), is when the sun is at most angles, the head feathers appear all black. Very black. Impossible for me, a duck ignoramous, to recognize a duck that looks like a mallard but has a black head. I guess that's why real duck watchers go by the speculum. That is a patch on the backside of the wing right next to the body--in many ducks, it is a bright color. And in mallards, it is blue.
When the ducks turned into the sun at just some specific angle, their heads became glowing, florescent, green. Wow. Freaky.
SAME DUCKS::::>
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