For I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide. –Thomas Mann
A rarity occurred this week: A passing spring cold front with beautiful weather behind coincided with a three-day weekend. We hit the road! The Smith Oaks Rookery is an afternoon photography site so we generally depart Houston mid-day and stay in Winnie the first evening for such getaways. The golden hour hits just as the shadow of the trees to the west of the rookery envelope the spoils-pile island–so the best shooting is at about 6:15 pm.
On this trip, we saw a number of new things. Roseate Spoonbills were bathing en mass at times, and every so often alligators would breach like bolts of lightning and attempt to grab birds from the shore. Strangely, when this occurred, the flocks of Roseate Spoonbills would walk towards the disturbance. Perhaps they were trying to give the predator sensory overload so it couldn’t decide which way to strike.
Quite a bit of plant material was being collected and presented to mates by Roseate Spoonbills, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, and Neotropic Cormorants. Eggs and chicks were present in Great Egret nests. We saw only eggs in Snowy Egret nests, and Roseate Spoonbills have not finished their nest-building, yet. Many cormorants were building or stuck like glue on their nests, so eggs, but no nestlings, are present in some nests.
On the way back we took our normal route: down Bolivar, stopping at Frenchtown Road, crossing the ferry to Galveston, and then stopping at Lafitte’s Cove. Not much was going on at either other place, though. Dowitchers have overrun Frenchtown road, and the Clapper Rails were chattering up a storm. There were more humans than birds at Lafitte’s Cove. One exhausted Blue-winged Warbler was flopping around in the thicket for a while but still managed the give the flock of photographers the slip.
Soon the songbirds will be arriving in the millions, and won’t be able to escape unphotographed . . . .
©2018 Christopher R. Cunningham. All rights reserved. No text or images may be duplicated or distributed without permission.