Drive-by Birding - Corpus Christ Style

We spent five days in the Corpus Christi, Texas area, and one day to and between Kingsville. There was relatively little time to stop and pick out the different kinds of birds, other than driving back and forth on the Highway 358 that cuts across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway as I

Long-billed Curlew - silhouette

looked out the Mustang GT passenger window while my son drove - when he flies, he is propelled by JP-8 on static wings much heavier than the air, not ones that flap and which are supported by hollow bones. I recognized some of the aquatic birds like Brown Pelican, Great Blue Heron, and Great Egret - even at a glance - but many of the rest I had to make quick snapshot imprints in my mind, and then go back to my bird guide to try and identify. Kind of like the silhouette shapes that Roger Tory Peterson became famous for in one of his early editions bird identification guides. The other kinds of silhouettes are are occasional ship passing this side of the horizon, and the tall oil platforms that stood against the sky.

Padre Island National Seashore

One eventing after dinner, we drove out to Padre Island National Seashore and parked at the first viewing trail just inside the gate. We took the branch to the left on the asphalt trail - walking with the
wind and sun in our faces. A small lizard scooted across the path and waited on the small bank on the left of the trail - looking back over the shoulder, watching for my next move. The sparse grassland appeared to have more wildlife abundance than sky - pretty depauperate of birds other than some kind of swallow, and those in

Texas Spotted Whiptail Lizard

the distance - a few hundred yards beyond the path - darting towards the ground and rising again - quickly with the breeze to their tails, momentarily paused when they turned into wind. In the far distance, a small flock of pelicans trailed one another - reminders that there is more water than land within a few mile radius of where we were. Perched on a tall grass stem was possibly an Eastern Kingbird or juvenile Fork-tailed Flycatcher - whatever it was (likely the flycatcher), it was hard to identify for sure because of the distortion when enlarging the photograph - but had a dark tail and upper body and crown, with a white throat and breast. There were also Spotted Ground Squirrel, Jackrabbit, and one White-tailed Deer - some sort of burrowing animal also left mounds along the edge of the paved trail.

Black-necked Stilt (above)

A couple of days later, my son and wife showed great patience and humored me by taking the ramps off of 358 so I could take some pictures of the birds along the shore for later identification. My favorite among the birds I saw that needed later identification was the Black-necked Stilt - never had heard of this species before. The other species identified were: Herring Gull, Little Egret, Neotropic Cormorant, Long-billed Curlew, Short-billed Dowitcher (pictured below the Stilt in the picture to the right), Lesser Sandpiper, Ruddy Turnstone, Stilt Sandpiper, Redhead Duck,... (more to be identified).

On the drive from Corpus Christi International Airport back to San Antonio, the sky was full of dark clouds that turned to large billowy

Flycatcher or Kingbird

ones and remained that way after the night and early-morning rains - the first precipitation in a long time. The scenery changed from cotton stubble left after the fields had been harvested, to a scrub woodland and eventually an oak woodland. The most abundant bird for the first hour of driving on Interstate 37 from the airport towards San Antonio was the Tree Swallow (though there may have been some Northern Rough-winged ones as well). There seemed to one or two darting every 20 seconds of driving 70 miles per hour. The most interesting sighting was a single Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and then a group of three - the three heading for an oak tree off to the right side of the freeway. A single Crested Caracara was also spotted. Back on San Padre Island, the most common inland birds were Long-tailed and Great-tailed Grackles and Mourning Doves - an occasional Turkey Vulture was seen.

I was surprised when I did a little bit of background reading before our trip by the diversity of birds in the region. It seems like the kind of place one could hang around in for some time, and not be surprised to see another new bird each day.
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For lists of the nature found on Padre Island National Seashore, click on the following links: reptiles, birds, mammals, and plants.