for the birds

This one’s for my friend Katie Fallon, author of Cerulean Blues and Vulture.

On Goose Island, I saw spotted sandpiper, bufflehead, sanderling, turkey vulture, and black vulture – so many black vultures.

On Padre Island, brown pelican, great blue heron, long-billed curlew, laughing gull, grackle, and Wilson’s plover.

In Port Isabel, a field of snow geese – is that rare?? There is certainly no snow here! It’s T-shirt weather. In fact, I saw the most beautiful sunset, all pinks and purples behind palm trees over perfectly still water giving a pristine reflection of the same – sorry, no pictures, as I was driving. Views like this certainly make the Christmas decorations a little disconcerting.

On the road north of Brownsville, I saw a crested caracara and lots of red-tailed hawk, and a darker bird of prey of about the same size that I could not ID. And turkeys! A whole flock of turkeys, the first I’ve ever seen in the wild! What fun.

Here’s to more!