Upper Texas Coast Update No. 7

The Vermont Bird Tours trip to the Upper Texas Coast continued Monday with one of the greatest events in all of North American birdwatching. We communed with thousands of American Avocets at Bolivar Flats. This is shorebirding paradise. The Avocets were a pulsing, flowing, feeding mass of elegance. Reddish Egrets danced around them. Two White-tailed Kites did aerial acrobatics overhead as Least Terns smacked the water like miniature Northern Gannets. We concluded the day at the water drip at Boyscout Woods, where full-frontal Yellow-breasted Chats and Painted Buntings were among highlights. I hope to load Avocet video soon. For now, here’s a Common Nighthawk from the other day and a Short-billed Dowitcher from Bolivar Peninsula. We’re up to 32 shorebird species for the Vermont Bird Tours trips (and we’re still missing a few). Sorry, I gotta rush out for warblers. Oh, and here’s a bonus post on an odd hybrid warbler. Please send you hypotheses.