There are lots of turkeys at Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, but as often as I've visited, I've never actually seen one. Periodically, I've heard them in the trees, but I've never seen one. This turkey ran in front of the car for several minutes before finally moving off into the greenery in the ditch.
Back in April, I lucked out and saw the migration of the American White pelicans through Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge. Seeing so many pelicans at once was an amazing sight.
On Thanksgiving Day in Port Aransas, TX, I found this beautiful brown pelican was hanging around the trail near Charlie's Pasture. The pelican was more annoyed than worried by my presence and actually let me get fairly close before flying a few feet away and giving me the stink-eye.
Vultures are some of my favorite birds to watch. They have so much personality and seem to really know how to have fun. At the Aransas NWR, there was a large group of turkey vultures and black vultures playing in the trees near the marsh by the birding platform.
This particular turkey vulture was playing around on a tree limb and appeared to be annoying the nearby vultures who were roosting.
We were hiking an area that was heavily foliaged and had marshland on either side when this little armadillo showed up in the middle of the path. This armadillo was much more concerned with the bugs it was rooting up than it was with the annoying humans who were approaching. It's lack of concern allowed me to get some nice close-up photos.
Coots are basically pigeons that decided to be ducks. I'm not knocking coots -- I like pigeons! -- they just remind me of pigeon-ducks. They even have red eyes like a pigeon.
Happily, the heron came down the beach to where we were sitting a little while later. And, I had the luck to capture it catching (and eating) a large fish.
After its meal, it flew even closer to us and hung out until a large truck came by and scared the heron off into the dunes.
