Estero Llano Grande State Park

I know... Another bird park. But we are in the best area for birding! And you never know what you'll see.

So Estero Llano is a great park. As you arrive, you are on a spacious deck over a very large pond that many ducks and shorebirds enjoy. You could just go there and not walk the trails and see plenty!

Northern Shoveler. Note the wide bill shaped like a shovel.

A beautiful pair of Northern Shovelers

Blue-winged Teal

Sora Rail

Notice the short upturned tail.

Line up by size.

Green-winged Teals

Ibis

All those birds above were seen in that pond. Then you just follow the well-marked trails and keep your eyes open as birds are everywhere.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Vermillion Flycatcher seen from the back. Too bad I couldn't see his front
as they are gorgeous!

Glen captured him from a different angle letting see a bit of the red on his breast.

Couch's Kingbird

Louisiana Waterthrush? Not sure of this one.

There were boardwalks here and there.

Olive Sparrow

Short-tailed Hawk

Some of the trails were just beautiful

At one point, after having walked for miles, there was a trail that went straight up. Glen offered to go up and let me know if it was worth the effort for me to climb the hill.

He quickly signaled to me to come up and see. That trail led to the Estero Llano Grande river where many shorebirds could be seen and heard. It was fantastic to hear all the sounds coming from the Avocets. I had never seen these birds. How exciting!

There were also the Black-necked Stilts

American Avocet

From there it was a pretty easy walk to the alligator pond.

Yes there were some alligators which actually looked slightly different than the ones we had seen in Florida. These have very prominent "spikes" on their backs. Maybe it's like the plants in Texas which many are adorned by needles.

Look at the size of those spikes!

But the most exciting was to see three different species of Herons right there in front of us. So cool!

Black-crowned Night Heron

Photo credit Glen Harris

Great White Egret

Yellow-crowned Night Heron seen from the front

Yellow-crowned Night Heron seen from the back. Wow!
Photo credit Glen Harris

Then a little further, there was a small deck that was over the water and that is where we witnessed a Cormorant that had just caught a fish and was now perched in a tree. He repeatedly banged that fish on the tree trunk, I'm guessing to kill it, and after quite a while of manipulating and banging it, he finally swallowed it with great difficulty as the fish was quite large.

Cormorant swinging the fish and banging it on the tree.

Finally started eating it.

Glen on that deck over the alligator pond.

As we were leaving that area I noticed some people looking into the woods at the ground and pointing. Nosy as I am I went over and asked what they were looking at. The lady said: "There's a Pauraque there. Look, right there." Well, it took a while for me to spot it as it is so well camouflaged. These are nocturnal birds so they sleep during the day. It's surprising they chose to sleep right there by the trail. There were two of them. Maybe a pair?

Look closely. It's facing us.

This one is behind that branch. No one would ever spot them unless
 you were really looking for them. 

What a fruitful day! So many new species to add to my list and so many we had never seen before. We'll try to go back at least once before we leave.

Beautiful picture taken by Glen

Bye for now!