We meet for the Migration Celebration dinner at RiverPlace, the night before.
Next day we're off down Quintana Road to look for birds. This is an LNG train under construction.
First Bird: A Scissor-tailed Flycatcher on a power line
Birds of another feather at the Quintana Beach Bird Sanctuary
A Purple Martin on his viewing porch
Master of all he surveys
Purple Martin making its bed
Mr. and Mrs. Purple Martin
Two Freeport LNG trains under construction
Lesser Yellow Legs near Quintana Beach
Lesser Yellow Legs, showing off its camouflage
Lifeboat converted into a flower bed
Foreground: John Lienhard & David Plunkett. Background: LNG facility
We discover a Belted Kingfisher on concertina wire.
The Kingfisher begins to speak.
The Kingfisher shouts!
... and he deigns to look at us.
Now at Surfside, on the other side of the Brazos River. Pelicans line a sludge duct.
Panorama view of dredging operation at Surfside
Gulls like the sludge pipe holder.
Gulls on left side. Royal Terns on the right.
Two Brown Pelicans vie for the same air space...
... now they level out in ground effect flight.
The Dredges with Pelican-laden sludge ducts
A Stolt Tanker behind bird-filled sludge ducts
The Crewboat Gladys D
Juvenile Brown Pelican on left -- its parents on the right.
Papa Pelican lands next to junior.
Crewboad Gladys D departs.
The world's fanciest restroom
Lots of fishing from the Surfside dock
Two small power trubines and other equipment on a dredge pilot house
A Laughing Gull in formal presentation
The tugboat, American Patriot
A Black Vulture guards the way into the Brazoria Wildlife Refuge ...
... he turns to scruitinize us.
This Black Vulture calls our attention to a Warning sign.
Another Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is a friendlier greeter to the Refuge.
An American Coot in the rushes.
Egrets, Snowy and Reddish, dot the far fields.
A Northern Shoveler with American Coots and a brown duck
Brown Duck, Northern Shoveler Duck, American Coot
Black-necked Stilt
A White-faced Ibis in flight
Two more Black-necked Stilts (in a bookmark format)