One Swallow Does Not Make Spring [Aristotle]

It seems that migrating season for South Coastal Texas has just begun, and now a lot that I've seen in the past month or so are leaving the area slowly. The numbers are beginning to dwindle down to a slight amount of migratory sightings. With such a warm April, May will be a lot slower in any heavy migration I think. Of course, that's just an uneducated guess on my part. Altho Bud and I have been out birding for a few hours nearly each day in April, and I have quite a collection of 'new found' birds for the year...if my charting and counting is accurate, we've spotted 165-170 different birds. I'll eventually post the images, probably way beyond migration season, but I will still share...perhaps the images will be intermixed with a few babies here and there. I can only hope. I thought I'd start off with a uncommon bird seen here in my parts [or should I say elusive?]. It has been on my 'to find and photograph' notepad list since the beginning of my taking up bird photography as a hobby. Over a year and a half now, and I finally spotted one [take note of the size of its feet!]...

PURPLE GALLINULE

[pronounced GAL uh newel]

photo taken: Hans Suter Wildlife Refuge - Corpus Christi, Texas

Habitat Range:

The Purple Gallinue is essentially a tropical marsh bird that just makes its way into the United States. A more or less 'silent bird' that feeds on fruits, seeds, flowers, grains and seldom a few invertebrates.

At the same area, on the same day, we saw two different swallows:

BARN SWALLOW

photo taken: Hans Suter Wildlife Refuge - Corpus Christi, Texas

Habitat Range:

[Northern] ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW

photo taken: Hans Suter Wildlife Refuge - Corpus Christi, Texas

Habitat Range:

Farther over the boardwalk, this beauty came into view. This bird family [genus] is a species that is most difficult to photograph for they rarely remain in one spot for long:

YELLOW WARBLER

photo taken: Hans Suter Wildlife Refuge - Corpus Christi, Texas

Habitat Range:

...and last but not least, as the saying goes, I was mesmerized by 'the dance'... It seemed to be a bit of a novice at catching anything. Anyway, that was my impression at first until I read that this very active, running, jumping and chasing is all its natural way of feeding. At times, it was a bit of comedy relief ...

REDDISH EGRET

photo taken: Hans Suter Wildlife Refuge - Corpus Christi, Texas

Habitat Range:

Also, this past week, I even spotted and photographed a bird that was found at Hans Suter Refuge that wasn't supposed to be anywhere near Texas... my area of Texas anyway. In fact, the habitat boundaries show that they barely come into the eastern area of the state!! And then it's only during migration season. I used several of my book guides of Texas Birds; showing nothing that I photographed. When it all came down to getting my huge North American Bird Guide off the bookshelf did I finally find it. I was shocked to read about it. The colors are so unique and only last for such a short time in this 'color stage'! The remaining months of the year, they're a dull indistinct color. I'll get to that bird hopefully soon and get some information for y'all real quick. Stay tuned.

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