Love watching brown pelicans dive for fish.

Osprey hunting. One of a pair. Caracara were also in the area.

Tern with a small fish.

Ruby-crowned kinglet. Such big eyes for such a small bird.

Had a few more visits from the kingfisher. First, and probably last time, a kingfisher will sit still long enough for me take their picture.

Wild turkey’s fluffed up and on the fence.

I’m again parked along the Arroyo Colorado in southernmost Texas. The weather continues to be a lot better than last year, albeit quite windy. A lot of homes still have their windows boarded up.

It has been a very Dickens’ December for me. Listened to Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Bleak House.

The belted kingfisher above gave me a present in landing right by my rv for a few minutes. Bet nature gave it the white dots near it’s eyes just to confuse both predators and prey.

Flycatcher

Great kiskadee

Tri-colored heron in the background,  little blue heron in the foreground.

Below, tri-colored heron. In the first one has a tiny fish in it’s beak.

I’m currently at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. I’m staying at the same county park I stayed at last year in the village of Arroyo City near the small town of Rio Hondo which in turn is near the city of Brownsville, Texas. You still see a lot of boarded up windows and piles of debri in the area, but probably a lot of damage is unseen. The refuge looks great. It was pretty dry when I visited last year. Now there is water all over the place.

Above: A green jay at the refuge visitor center; below it, a crested caracara on a hot and windy day.

Reddish egret on the same hot and windy day.

Long billed curlew

Placed some grapefruit on a tree limb outside my door and took the pictures below through the screen. The order reflects the bird ranking: woodpecker trumps the green jay who trumps the cardinal who trumps the sparrow.