Texas Trip - Day Three

We drove over to Choke Canyon State Park, Calliham Unit. This is a nice place if you like to fish. I didn't see much else to occupy a person here other than camping, walking some easy trails, birding and fishing. We came here because there was a US first bird being seen here a couple of weeks before we arrived. Of course we missed the bird but we enjoyed our birding visit here. There are plenty of trails to walk and our bird list grew here. To me the best birds here were Roseate Spoonbill, Vermillion Flycatcher, Sora, White-faced Ibis, White Ibis, and our first Green Jay of the trip.

One of my favorite birds of Texas is the Crested Caracara. It is a large hawk-like bird that is easy to spot. It has a 50 wingspan so if it is soaring about you notice. These pictures my DB took of one that sat quietly if briefly. Long enough I got an eye full of his head. I couldn't wait to paint it.

We saw the most Caracaras we have ever seen in one trip today. We saw 15 in all. We aren't usually in this section of the state so this must be the reason why. Maybe it has been so dry in different areas of the State that they congregated here for the winter. I don't know really, but it was fun seeing so many.This is a juvenile that we saw later in the day. This is the fist juvenile I have ever seen. You can see that the coloring is different. It's facial skin is red instead of orangy yellow and over all it is browns. This one looked much thinner than the adults even though it was still with an adult. He must be expected to find his own food.

If you would like to read more about Choke Canyon State Park you can go here. If you would like to know more about the Crested Caracara you can go here.