Birding Adventure - Lake Kirby

Basically, we bird all the time. Every run outside and drive to work we're both spotting all the birds on the ground and in the air. The more extravagant adventures are worth it, though. Just a bit ago we took the little drive out to Lake Kirby on the south side of Abilene. What we saw was amazing.

The sky was on fire that morning! The pictures just never do a sunrise justice, but that's one of my favorite parts of birding. In Texas, there isn't anything to obscure the sun when it's rising, so it surfaces big, red and bright. We ended up seeing about 20 different species of birds, many of which were new. As we were getting close to finishing up, an old man pulled up to us in his truck and asked if we were birding. After some fun conversation, the man (Sam) told us how to get to the other side of the lake. It was much less visited, he said, and we'd be able to see lots of different kinds that won't go on the main side. Those directions started another adventure that lasted about 2 more hours.  Finding the other side was harder than we thought (why there aren't as many people to scare off the birds), and we ended up driving around the lake about four times before finding the turn off. It was absolutely worth it, though.

The above picture is our new friend, the Red-winged Blackbird. These guys are beautiful. Big red shoulders, with a bright yellow wing stripe visible in flight. I'm glad we caught them in the spring because all the males were scoping our their territories and their territorial calls are wonderful. We also saw a few Great Blue Herons, a bunch of Double-crested Cormorants (which are really the most mysterious water birds ever), some Snowy Egrets, a few Killdeer and Greater Yellow Legs, several Northern Cardinals, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers (my favorite), a group of Wild Turkeys, American White Pelicans, tons of American Coots and other ducks, and an unidentified hawk - still working on hawks, they're proving tough to differentiate.

Along with the beautiful morning birds, our conversation with Sam was meaningful. Every morning, he comes to pick up trash around the lake and to watch the birds. He says he likes it because it gets him and his wife out of the house. His wife, who has Alzheimer's sat in the truck beside him. He had just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, but lamented that she didn't understand what was going on. He worried they wouldn't make it to their 51st. The conversation touched me, as did his love for and knowledge of the birds by the lake. He said fairly soon, we should be able to see a Green Heron come into town. Green Herons are a favorite we'd love to see in the wild - the king of all grouch birds.

Again, birding was restorative. It brought back a deep sense of wonder and awe for the beauty of the world we live in and the millions of different creatures that call it home.

I hope to see many more Red-winged Blackbirds this spring. Spring continues to promise new sights by sending us a female Indigo Bunting on our feeder - undeterred by the squabbling sparrows. She's spunky and apparently a rare sight. They're secretive birds, especially the females. We have our eyes wide open searching for her bright blue mate. Spring also brought barn swallows - the little torpedo bird. I can't wait to see what the warmer weather blows in.