Charlie's Pasture North...

Friday Morning, September 16th, I left for the islands around 6:30 a.m. By the time I reached Leonabelle Refuge [a favorite area on Mustang Island], the sun was just coming up and once again, promised to be a hot, sultry day. The Gulf's tide was extremely high...enough to send across my weather app, a Tidal Flood alert....That meant WATER seepage in the salt flats!! And perhaps a lot of salt water shorebirds. From Leonabelle's observation tower a person can take their scopes or binoculars and look far beyond the cat-tail pond and see Charlie's Pasture Nature Preserve [North AND South]. The North Pasture juts up against the Port of Corpus Christi's Ship Channel from the Gulf of Mexico. Another birder told me as I was leaving the first stop for the day that there was a lot of activity at Charlie's. I walked the parking lot's turn-around first, as he left the refuge. I met up with him again at Charlie's. The young man was originally from Houston [born and raised] and he told me of a few places I could perhaps see the Blue Jay and the Pileated Woodpecker within 100 miles from home - without having to drive to Austin OR Houston. So, come winter, Bud and I plan to travel for a day trip to the area he told me about. Anyway, I got sidetracked...When I got there, the water was shin deep and the bird population was astounding!! Multiple dozens of egrets, herons, spoonbills, sandpipers, ONE Virginia Rail, a Loggerhead Shrike, Mockingbirds, Blackbirds [red winged], Killdeer, ONE Horned Lark, a few Black Skimmers, Willets, Lesser Yellowlegs, Terns, Gulls, a single Long Billed Curlew, and literally 1000s of Black Necked Stilts. I was dumbfounded.

Here are just a few of the nearly 200 photos I took along the boardwalk in the salt flats...

One group of Black Necked Stilts

...and another

...yet, more

...still, more Stilts in another area

Along with the Stilts, a lone Little Blue Heron

Willets, Yellowlegs, and Black Necked Stilts

Willets, Yellowlegs and Stilts

Black Necked Stilts & a Snowy Egret

Caspian Tern


Stilt Sandpipers


Tri-colored Heron


Reddish Egrets


Horned Lark


Long Billed Curlew


Black Skimmer & Forster's Tern


Reddish Egret on the Chase!!


Loggerhead Shrike




Virginia Rail


ALL photos taken at Charlie's Pasture North - Port Aransas, Texas
habitat maps:  Rail, Yellowlegs, Little Blue Heron, Willet, Forster's Tern, Tri-colored Heron, Stilt Sandpiper, Reddish Egret,  Shrike, Lark, Curlew, Caspian Tern, Skimmer,



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For being there about an hour before the open flats got too warm for this gal, I 'hauled in a lot of neat birds'!!!  I still had to stop and one more 'hot spot'....Paradise Pond.

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