Lotta birds on the bayou!

Day job duties had me in Louisiana this past week. Holly drove over for the weekend and we hit up both Grand Isle and Jean Lafitte to see if we could spy any early migrants. While we netted nothing wholly unexpected, we did get some good birds. Enough to kick our official count up by seven. One of the highlights was really good looks at several Prothonotary Warblers... in both locations. Northern Parulas were also present in numbers.

Well, 'yellow' there good lookin'!

Easter weekend we are headed to the hill country for a shot at the Golden-cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo. Hopefully we can add another dozen or so birds to what has otherwise been a very quite March for us. April changes everything however... with our goals firmly fixed on snapping up as many spring migrant pics as we can. Stay tuned!

Gull ID anyone?

This one has us stumped. It has also stumped some pretty knowledgable folks both here in Texas and in our new Minnesota connection. This photo was taken last Sunday at Goose Island State Park in Rockport, TX. I snapped the pic because the bird was larger than the Laughing Gulls it was hanging out with... and obviously was not one of them.

There had been reports of a young Slaty-backed Gull in the area, and I thought we might have him here. But this photo and the other photos of the Slaty don't quite match up. Any guesses?

NOTE: We're carrying this as an Iceland Gull in the photostream.