Visiting With Spoonbills, and Marathon Shopping

Yesterday morning was wonderfully routine - sleeping in, getting our walk done, enjoying coffee. We didn't have any particular plans for the day. The weather was windy and just a little chilly, with rain showers predicted. Eventually, someone suggested a run to Walmart, so off we went. Dortha needed to return an item, and I'm always up for shopping and people watching.

We decided to take a short drive after the shopping. I suggested going over to Port Aransas to check out the birding area, even though the wind was pretty high. We were pleasantly surprised to find quite a variety of birds, including my favorite, the roseate spoonbills.

This tri-colored heron was very vocal, but he wanted to stay hidden behind these reeds:

A pelican swallowing his catch:

A northern shoveler - it took some patience to get a picture of him without his long bill in the water:

This morning, Mark was taking their Jeep over to Aransas Pass to the dealership to have a leak checked out. He was going to call Jim for a ride home if they kept it to do the work. Since we needed to get up for Jim to be ready to go fetch Mark anyway, we decided to go see if the spoonbills were out feeding in their usual spot this morning. Yes, they were! We hung around for about 20 minutes or so, snapping pictures. The light wasn't very good, so most of our pictures didn't turn out too well, but we got a few we can share.

Yes, this is a sunrise, not sunset!

White ibis, great egrets, spoonbills, all busy getting their breakfast:

The roseate spoonbills are such interesting birds - they are both beautiful and strange looking, graceful and awkward. They wade along in the shallow water, sweeping their heads back and forth with their spoon-shaped bills, scooping up whatever they find to eat. They are pale pink to nearly red under their wings:

It's almost as if this great blue heron is encouraging the spoonbills to follow him around:

There are lots of snowy egrets around too:

We got back home to wait for Mark to call, but he showed up in the Jeep instead. The dealership needed to make some phone calls for all the proper authorizations to get the problem fixed under warranty. We had already talked about going over to Corpus Christi to do some shopping today. The four of us headed out and visited a variety of stores. We'd been through two or three stores when lunchtime rolled around, so we used our coupons for TGI Friday's and had a nice lunch before continuing the shopping marathon.

A stop at TCBY for a frozen yogurt treat was our last stop before starting the trek back home. On the way back, we made one more quick stop at a souvenir/T-shirt shop. Then we headed home with all our treasures! Mark and Jim were hungry again, but Dortha and I declined their invitation to go get a sandwich.

Now we're all settled in back at home for a restful evening.