Bolivar (1)

.
After Anahuac on Sunday we drove to High Island, where we planned to have a picnic lunch in the Boy Scout Wood sanctuary. Bad idea! The mosquitoes were  really ferocious. So we headed down to the coast and along the Bolivar peninsula to Rollover Pass, where we set up our chairs on a sandy spit that projects into the sea.

It turned out to be a great place for lunch: Hardly any people and no mosquitoes! Even better, from where we sat we could see more than a score of bird species.

The larger wading birds - Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets and Rediish Egrets - were too far away to photograph but a couple of hundred Brown Pelicans were resting on nearby sandbars.

They shared the sandbars with hundreds of other birds, including many Laughing Gulls and several Tern species.

The black birds on this sandbar were Black Skimmers.

A few dozen Least Terns were outnunbered by large flocks of Royal Terns.

The calls of the Royal Terns as they flew overhead drowned out even the noise of the Laughing Gulls.

Amazingly, the Terns were able to make just as much noise even when they had their mouths full!

This pair of American Oystercatchers were taking a break from feeding.

Another Oystercatcher decided that we had parked too close.

 
Willets were everywhere, their drab plumage blending in well with the colors of the sand and sea.

Of course, thery stop being inconspicuous as soon as they spread a wing!

There were a few less common and more interesting birds at Rollover - but let me leave those for my next blog post.
.