Texas Travel Diary - p 3
 23
April 2009Those shorebirds were a nice easy photo shoot, but today it's back to the challenge of photographing migrant songbirds. A good place to start is Paradise Pond in Port Aransas, a 2.5 acre pond area whose margin of willows and other trees attract all the migrants. Close to the boardwalk is a first spring male Summer Tanager, feeding on wasps and the like. Later this year he will molt from his rather garish appearance into the pleasing red of breeding males. |
 Paradise, alas, has dried up, the result of a long drought in these parts. The pond is now a weedy meadow, but millet has been planted and thrives here. It provides the buntings a much needed snack as they arrive from Mexico. As many as a dozen Indigo Buntings work the seed heads at once.
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 The
more colorful Painted Buntings are, naturally, more shy. Duncan and I
spend many hours on one of the decks, awaiting that moment when the bunting of
choice comes close enough and is open for an acceptable photo. It's hot
work; we adjourn for iced tea at Taqueria San Juan, a Mexican restaurant next to
the Pond that just oozes local atmosphere. Thus refreshed, we return for more buntings. |
Just about any patch of woods around here
attracts migrants . Blucher Park, practically in the middle of downtown
Corpus Christi, is small but its streamside trees hold Northern Waterthrush, as
well as Baltimore Orioles and Rufous-sided Towhees feeding on mulberries.
There's even a Chuck-Will's Widow flitting about. But my only photo op comes
across the street at a tree where Golden-fronted Woodpeckers are nesting.
This bird seems to be the replacement species for our own Red-bellied
Woodpecker.
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