Ever see a pink cardinal?

Holly and I did a bit of birding this weekend. Plans to return to the LRGV were nixed by weather, so we headed west to see if we could locate the Whooping Cranes that have taken up residence at Granger Lake near Austin. We came away empty, but took the initiative to check out some of the state parks in the area. We didn't see a whole lot at any one location, but as we were leaving Palmetto State Park near Gonzales we came across this.

That's a leucistic cardinal. It's not albinoism, but rather a condition that robs species of color pigment. The result here was a pinkish-white cardinal... an excellent-looking bird.
We did add a few more species to our list... Sandhill Crane, Monk Parakeet, Common Goldeneye, etc... Now it's countdown to Sax-Zim! We've gathered our cold-weather gear and are ready to see what the Minnesota winter has to offer. We have an owl prowl on Friday evening, a bog tour on Saturday and a greater Duluth tour on Sunday. We are also scouting a possible Monday morning trip to Gooseberry Falls State Park. We're hoping to squeeze in as much birding as possible!