Saturday, September 5, 2015

No Pesky Raptors

This weekend, we camped at Goliad State Park. This site was to be a staging area for hawk watching at the Corpus Christi Hawkwatch site and Hazel Bazemore Park. We were expecting to see the migration of Mississippi Kites and hoping to see some Swallow-tailed Kites.

Well, the winds did not cooperate. On a really bad year for kites, this was apparently one of the worst days. The counters saw about 20 kites. We saw none.  When one of the late-comers came and asked about the conditions, one of the counters quipped "The sky is beautiful with no pesky raptors to obscure the view." Awesome quote.

Fortunately, the hummingbird feeders were quite active. I even got good views of a Buff-bellied Hummingbird, a Gulf-Coast specialty. While watching, I noticed that the Buff-bellied sounds like a Geiger counter instead of the high-pitched chittering of the Ruby-throat

Ruby-throat Hummingbird
Ruby-throat Hummingbird
Buff-bellied Hummingbird

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