I was up at 5 am with the alarm. Barbr was dressed already and said a noise woke her up at 4 am and she had been up since then. It was a cool night but comfortable, not like Wednesday night when it we were frozen with the drop in temperature and no heat source in the rustic room.
We drove in the dark to the nearby meet-up spot at the Civic Center and got on the bus for 6 am. The trip took almost 1.5 hours to get to the King Ranch. King Ranch Santa Gertrudis section is on the way to Brownsville but not as far south as the Norias Section which Colleen and I visited in 2014. The Santa Gertrudis section includes town of Kingsville and that is where we entered the King Ranch. The leader of this outing is the ranch's tourism and bird operations director. So Tom knew the ranch very well having worked for them since 1996. In fact Tom was one of the ranch's tour leaders when Colleen and I had a birding outing there. Tom is an excellent communicator and also has a good sense of humour. What I did not realize that since this is the north end of the ranch that the southern ranch's bird specialties would not be here, such as Tropical Parula and Ferruginous Pygmy Owl.
We were on a big chartered bus and it was a big group but the King Ranch employees are real professionals and experts and out group size was not an issue at all. We traveled the roads that Tom had selected for the birds and we got out many times to walk a road, or go by a pond or view some feeders. If someone called out something being seen we were all keen to get out and see what it was. We had Vermilion Flycatcher, Long-billed Thrasher and all the usual Texas suspects (Green Jay, Great Kiskadee, Black-crested Titmouse, Olive Sparrow, Golden-fronted Woodpecker, etc.). The weather was overcast, drizzly and misty. Not the best light for taking any decent photos.
By noon the sun was out and it was hot. We had a great Texas BBQ lunch which was delicious. We were not hungry at supper time so around 8 pm we only had snacks. Then it was 1:30 pm and time to return to Port Aransas. We were back at 3 pm and we went inside the Whooping Crane Festival Headquarters to view the exhibits. All the booths were about birds; travel, other festivals, bird trinkets, bird paintings, bird T-shirts. The only bird optics booth was Swarovski. The Zeiss people were not there, neither were the Cannon people. I had wanted to talk with the fellows from both of these companies but not this time. We toured the exhibits and of course one will buy a book, a T-shirt or some other bird-related item! We did. We may go back tomorrow.
We went back home and changed out of our birding clothes (long pants and long sleeved tops) and into t-shirts and shorts and sandals and off to the beach we went. We walked barefoot in the surf and it was wonderful. Sometimes there were some Willets beside us on the beach or a Laughing Gull. It was a good long walk and we returned after 5:30 pm and just relaxed with the breeze and had something to drink. A good day! Birds and Beach!!!
We drove in the dark to the nearby meet-up spot at the Civic Center and got on the bus for 6 am. The trip took almost 1.5 hours to get to the King Ranch. King Ranch Santa Gertrudis section is on the way to Brownsville but not as far south as the Norias Section which Colleen and I visited in 2014. The Santa Gertrudis section includes town of Kingsville and that is where we entered the King Ranch. The leader of this outing is the ranch's tourism and bird operations director. So Tom knew the ranch very well having worked for them since 1996. In fact Tom was one of the ranch's tour leaders when Colleen and I had a birding outing there. Tom is an excellent communicator and also has a good sense of humour. What I did not realize that since this is the north end of the ranch that the southern ranch's bird specialties would not be here, such as Tropical Parula and Ferruginous Pygmy Owl.
We were on a big chartered bus and it was a big group but the King Ranch employees are real professionals and experts and out group size was not an issue at all. We traveled the roads that Tom had selected for the birds and we got out many times to walk a road, or go by a pond or view some feeders. If someone called out something being seen we were all keen to get out and see what it was. We had Vermilion Flycatcher, Long-billed Thrasher and all the usual Texas suspects (Green Jay, Great Kiskadee, Black-crested Titmouse, Olive Sparrow, Golden-fronted Woodpecker, etc.). The weather was overcast, drizzly and misty. Not the best light for taking any decent photos.
By noon the sun was out and it was hot. We had a great Texas BBQ lunch which was delicious. We were not hungry at supper time so around 8 pm we only had snacks. Then it was 1:30 pm and time to return to Port Aransas. We were back at 3 pm and we went inside the Whooping Crane Festival Headquarters to view the exhibits. All the booths were about birds; travel, other festivals, bird trinkets, bird paintings, bird T-shirts. The only bird optics booth was Swarovski. The Zeiss people were not there, neither were the Cannon people. I had wanted to talk with the fellows from both of these companies but not this time. We toured the exhibits and of course one will buy a book, a T-shirt or some other bird-related item! We did. We may go back tomorrow.
We went back home and changed out of our birding clothes (long pants and long sleeved tops) and into t-shirts and shorts and sandals and off to the beach we went. We walked barefoot in the surf and it was wonderful. Sometimes there were some Willets beside us on the beach or a Laughing Gull. It was a good long walk and we returned after 5:30 pm and just relaxed with the breeze and had something to drink. A good day! Birds and Beach!!!
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