Author: M Kathy Raines

This wide-eyed thrush—pot-belled, brown-spotted and robin-like in posture—traipsed among eager photographers at the South Padre Island Convention Center one October. It, like other migrants resting and refueling during their southward journey, looked weary.

The snowy egret slipped its yolk-yellow feet, toes first, into waters of the saltmarsh and strode across, stealthy and alert, ready to strike.