Texas trip - Aransas NWR - 19th March

This year's Spring Break destination is Texas so see old friends. With Fi only able to take a week's holiday, I got a free week's birding holiday in Texas! Watch out Rio Grande here I come! First stop was Aransas National Wildlife Refuge where the headline bird is Whooping Crane. The bulk of the wild population (310 out of about 440 birds) winter in the Aransas area. They were easy to locate, but hard to see well as they were about a mile away over the marsh. I eventually got good flight views, and serviceable, but distant photographs.

Other good birds in the reserve included Pyrrhuloxia, Merlin, American Kestrel and Crested Caracara.

The trails from the park HQ led through some nice habitat down to some saltmarsh areas, and it was here that I found singing Sedge Wrens, among the various other birds. In this area I also had both Marsh and House Wrens, as well as Sora, Belted Kingfisher, Neotropic Cormorant, and a range of waterbirds. Along the trail were several ponds and in the one closest to the HQ was a Least Grebe.

In the fields outside the park on the way out were flocks of American Golden Plovers with a few Pectoral Sandpipers mixed in.

Other wildlife included an Eastern Hog-snouted Snake, Feral Pigs and plenty of White-tailed Deer.

 Sedge Wren

 Least Grebe

Pied-billed Grebe

Whooping Crane

Green Treefrog

Eastern Hog-snouted Snake