Monday, September 23, 2013

Hawk-watching? Not as such.

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Sunday morning we drove down to Smith Point, intending to watch migrating hawks there. On the way we stopped to use the facilities at the Anahuac NWR visitor center on FM563. As we were leaving, we had good views of an adult Bald Eagle and a juvenile Mississippi Kite.

There was quite a crowd at the Smith Point hawk-watch tower. We stayed for a while but didn't see any hawks, so we decided to drive to a nearby site we'd never visited: Smith Point - James H. Robbins Park. 

Brown Pelicans and Forster's Terns were busy fishing while Laughing Gulls (below) seemed content to watch.


Although I was too slow to get a photo of a Black-bellied Plover that was strolling through the parking area, I managed a quick shot of a Willet.


Several Ruddy Turnstones were wandering along some pipes that appeared to have been placed as breakwaters.


However, the most striking birds were a couple of American Oystercatchers, looking rather comical with their over-sized orange bills.










After a few minutes we decided to head over to Anahuac NWR to do some more birding and to have lunch. It had been some months since we had visited Anahuac, which is one of our favorite wildlife sites in Texas. 
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