The Texas coast is the winter home of the Whooping Crane, one of the great conservation success stories. This weekend was a visit to a few areas, from Port Lavaca down to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. Saw a single pair of whooping cranes, though only had a brief time at the refuge. They just stood and preened, in easy sight from the observation platform. One would almost think they were posing. Plenty of other birds as well, including the "Desert Cardinal" (Pyrrhuloxia), a striking American Kestrel, and the unwitting source of hours of amusement on camping trips - the Wilson's Snipe.
Another relatively common but rather interesting observation was the Roseate Spoonbill, which uses that spatulate bill to stir up the muck and hunt down some dinner. The Royal Tern was a striking bird in flight - sleet, sharp, like some futuristic flying machine. And the American Oystercatcher was hard not to admire with its bright orange beak (which it promptly hid when it came time for pictures).
And it wasn't only birds along the coast. A pair of Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins were hunting and frolicking in a tide rip, an American Alligator was sunning himself by the side of a pond, and a little hermit crab was leaving its tracks in the mud, reminding me of a fossil of a horseshoe crab and its curving tracks.
A few more of the birds and other assorted observations from the coast below: