Panoramic Christmas

If y'all once in a while stop by my personal blog you probably have read about the city police a couple weeks ago, on Christmas Day, thinking Bud and I may have been terrorists armed with our binoculars and camera along the Shipping Channel in our city.   The post:  A Funny Thing Happened in Search for a Booby.   Well, we both were actually still looking for the reported Brown Booby, spotted by several other birders, that was seen perching on an abandoned barge near the ships' turn-around. We gave up without seeing the Booby, but I did experiment a little with the panoramic feature on my camera. Where we pulled off, along the back side of the oil refineries and docking, we spotted literally a hundred or more cormorants along the channel bank, and a few white pelicans. A huge oil tanker was blocking the barge view where we first stopped, and the cormorants flew off into the wild blue yonder...

After the police realized we were birders, and leaving with a "Merry Christmas" salutation, we lingered in hopes of viewing the Brown Booby, but to no avail. We hopped in the car, drove over, and behind, the channel to the highway heading toward Portland, Texas and Indian Point Park. There, as we walked along the biking/hiking trail and viewing the tidal basin ponds along the way, we first spotted a couple of Snowy Egrets and dozens of American Avocets.

Then, as we walked further...way in the distance, very near to the shore waters of the North Bay I spotted a dozen or more winter visitors to our area---the beautiful Bufflehead Ducks!! Sadly, they were too far off, and the sky was overcast. Not only that, but the ducks were way too close to the grassy banks that separate the fresh water ponds and the sea water...being quite shady, and the photo turn-out seemed too dark. So, really not able to get the beautiful colors of the male Bufflehead. :o( Some day I will tho!!!

CORMORANTS & WHITE PELICANS [1st photo]
CORMORANTS IN FLIGHT [2nd photo]
SNOWY EGRETS & AMERICAN AVOCETS [3rd photo]
BUFFLEHEAD DUCKS [4th & 5th photo]
Photos taken: Corpus Christi Port Ship Channel - Corpus Christi, Texas and Indian Point Park - Portland, Texas
Habitat Range:  Bufflehead Duck, Snowy Egret, American Avocet, White Pelican, Cormorant

BUFFLEHEAD DUCK TRIVIA:
Bufflehead fossils from the late Pleistocene (about 500,000 years ago) have been found in Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Texas, and Washington. One California fossil that resembles a modern Bufflehead dates to the late Pliocene, two million years ago.

The Bufflehead’s breeding range is limited by the distribution of Northern Flickers, which are their main source of nesting cavities

Bufflehead are North America’s smallest diving duck.




...now, if you'd like, share some of your birding experiences & photos: