Saturday, January 28, 2012

A Long Way From Home

We drove out to Port Mansfield today. There had been reports of a Purple Sandpiper being seen. Since that would be a life bird for us, and we had a day off, we headed on out.

This Sandpiper breeds in arctic and subarctic regions of Canada and central Siberia. It has a more northerly distribution in winter than any other shorebird. It’s considered a rare but regular visitor to the Gulf Coast.

Port Mansfield is located on the Laguna Madre. We had directions to go to the tidal pools.


Port Mansfield

We found the Sandpiper feeding along the edges of the tidal pools. We watched for quite a while as it moved around the edges.










Purple Sandpiper and Willet

More pictures from Port Mansfield and Fred Stone County Park, next time!

6 comments:

  1. Great photos! Just found your blog. It is bringing back great memories to me of my two stints of volunteering at Laguna. :)

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  2. Welcome Judy! I have been following your blog for quite some time and really enjoy it!
    Teri

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  3. Did you see all of the deer while you were in Port Mansfield? Earn and I went there several times and could not believe all of the deer in people's yards.

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  4. When we were in Port Mansfield last year we found a dock where one fisherman was trying to clean his catch for the day. There were lots of pelicans in the water waiting for him to throw the leftovers in to them but there were two of them on the dock trying to steal the rest of the fish layin on the dock waiting to be cleaned. We laughed so hard watching him try to protect his catch from those two determined pelicans!

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  5. Yes!! Wasn't that weird? They were everywhere, five or six together, eating or just standing around.
    I’m glad you mentioned it Penny!
    Teri

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  6. We’ve seen that happen before. It’s so comical watching them try to maneuver around!
    There wasn’t anyone cleaning fish while we were there but when we walked over to the fish cleaning table, the pelicans started following us. That’s where Mark got all the great photos.

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