South Padre Island Part 2, 11/26/17

There was another good bird on the Island besides the Black-throated Blue Warbler at Sheepshead.  A male Lazuli Bunting has been seen for the past few days at the Convention Center and I was hoping to get lucky and maybe get some good photos.  Well, I did.  He was hanging out with his close cousins the Indigo Buntings who were taking advantage of the free food.

There were at least sixty Indigo Buntings, mostly males.

And sprinkled among the Indigos were a half dozen of everyone's favorite, the Painted Bunting.  They were easiest to photograph at the water feature.

This Scarlet Tanager dared me to get a photo.  What a magnificent animal!

Cousin to the buntings and tanagers is the Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

Not as colorful but beautiful in their own right are the thrushes.  Here's the common Swainson's thrush with its big buffy eye ring.

The Gray-cheeked Thrush has a colder gray cast.

The Veery has a warm buffy rusty color and less spotting on the breast.

Red-eyed Vireos are on of the most common birds of the eastern forests.  We see relatively few considering how common they are.

A Philadelphia Vireo was down at Sheepshead.

I did not see this nighthawk well enough in flight to determine if it was a Lesser or a Common Nighthawk.

Brightly colored male Baltimore and Orchard Orioles are always popular.

However this male Hooded Oriole at Sheepshead was a surprise.  I rarely see them on SPI.

A fun day of sensory overload!