You Spin Me Right Round Like a Record

A todos mis pequeñas bailarinas,

Corpus Christi, Texas is not an atypical American city. There is a somewhat decrepit downtown and a robust commercial area/StripMallHell along the freeways. The city was founded in 1839, so it has some old neighborhoods with interesting architecture, but many other less-appealing places. Time and hurricanes have taken their toll.

For those reasons, we're camped north of there in Port Aransas. However, the birds don't realize that CC isn't the most pleasant place, so we spent much of today exploring parks and other places in the area. One thing you learn quickly as a New Birder is that birds find all kinds of habitats appealing, such as:

With its groomed lawns, lofty trees, extensive mosquito collection, and gravestones and mausoleums from the 1800s, the Rose Hill Cemetery is an ideal location for birds to relax while in Corpus Christi. 

After a long day in the city, we returned north to our campsite, stopping at the Port Aransas Nature Preserve to see what might be lurking. While strolling the mile of trails and boardwalk over the mudflats, we were shocked, shocked I say, to find a large group of Wilson's Phalaropes fueling up for the next stage of their migration.

We managed to get a video of their activities, presented for your edification:

One might compare this to the game played at Sunday picnics everywhere, where you put your forehead on a baseball bat and rotate excessively before running to a goal. Except, instead of just doing it at a picnic with Uncle Morty, you do it every day. Many times per day. Or you starve.

So, our annual tally after today's exertions stands at 450 species! On to 500!

Tomorrow night, we should be on South Padre Island, ready for a potentially migration-stalling north wind that is supposed to hit Sunday night. [Editor's note: Assuming we make it through tonight, see postscript]

Dancing the night away,
Me

p.s. Oh, by the way, there's a tornado warning currently underway here, and we are advised to seek shelter, as two twisters have touched down east of CC. Thanks to a massive thunderstorm, we're advised to be prepared for floods, quarter-sized hail, and given this state's Biblical inclinations, likely a plague of locusts. Oh, Texas! Let's hope our solar panels make it through OK...