Featherstone Quiltworks

Telephoto Tuesday — Yesterday I showed you some of Paradise Pond.  Only a mile or so away is the Leona Turnbull Birding Center.  You can click here for an aerial photo/map of Port Aransas, showing the birding center, and a small box to the upper right is Paradise Pond.  (If you hover with your cursor on the boxes, it will show the names.)

Usually we see a larger variety of birds at the birding center, but Sunday it was pretty much all ducks.  I did see a Roseate Spoonbill flying in the distance and landing in a marshy area, so they were hanging out down out of sight.  I think the ibises and herons were all at Paradise Pond.

The birding center is a very large area dedicated to hosting the migratory birds that travel along the Gulf coast.  It’s a fun place to visit, because you never know what you’ll see.  There is a long boardwalk on one side of the water with an observation tower in the middle.  Here is a picture from the top of the tower.  DH is at the far end of the boardwalk:

To the left (I think it’s south, but I’m usually wrong!) is a pretty wide open body of water with some marshy areas beyond:

And to the right (north?) is a mostly marshy area, home to nutria, many kinds of birds, and an alligator (I think to keep the nutria numbers under control).  Sunday I saw a hawk circling around for a meal, but I couldn’t get a decent picture.

And in the water we saw a number of green-winged teal (here is Mr. and Mrs. — aren’t they cute?):

blue-winged teal:

and this crazy northern shoveler who thought he was an otter.  He would swim totally under the water, kind of snake-like.  He is totally saturated, and it gives him kind of a crazed look.  I like this picture a lot!  Doesn’t he look a little psycho?

I’ve got my walking shoes on, and I’m off for an afternoon of shopping in the “big town”, Corpus Christi.  The excitement continues…

–Sue