Quick trip with the kids this morning with primary purpose of "sowing
seeds" of birding. I have 4 kids ages 10 to 2, and usually they have
lukewarm interest but today they seemed to be truly interested so I wanted
to take them somewhere with good numbers and diversity of larger and easily
observable birds.
Unfortunately most of the roads at MLAC were closed due to the recent heavy
rains, and numbers of water birds were way down. Just a few coots, one
Snowy Egret, a lone Ruddy Duck, and a few distant Neotropic Cormorants.
We had better luck with passerines though. The kids enjoyed seeing the pair
of Curve-billed Thrashers around the VC. Even the White-winged Doves were
"so beautiful" to the kids when they looked with binoculars, and they saw
for the first time why Purple Martins got the purple in their name!
Highlight for the kids was a cooperative male Bullocks Oriole in good
light. A female Orchard Oriole was seen at the same time across the road. A
nice male Canada Warbler was seen in the trees by the first pond. Also, a
Bronzed Cowbird passed through the trees at the VC, showing her red eye.
All things considered, it was a successful outing and left the kids wanting
more.
Enjoy,
Nate Nye
San Antonio
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