South Padre Island was chosen as the location for our bird count, and we met at 7:00 am at the Convention Center on the Island. After one and a half hours and 20 some odd species of birds we headed to the SPI Birding and Nature Center. Here we birded in the parking lot, from the back porch deck, and a short way on the boardwalk. We added some special birds here with Blackpoll Warbler, Swainson’s Warbler and a Black and White Warbler all in one tree. We continued our trek to the Valley Land Fund Lots on Sheepshead Street for even more species.

Reviewing our list at this point we headed to Isla Blanca Park for some shorebirds and achieved our goal with Ruddy Turnstone and Sanderlings. The bird of the day and biggest surprise was seen as we left the park. Sandra mentioned that she had seen birds in the grassy area by the church early in the week. We pulled into the drive and started scanning and near to us was an odd-looking bird that turned out to be a Bobolink. Hoorah!

We were running low on time and returned to the SPI BNC to hurry farther down the boardwalk for some of the birds being seen in that area. We found them with in minutes of our deadline of noon adding Least Bittern and Purple Gallinule to our list. Seconds after we closed our eBird submission we saw a Solitary Sandpiper. Our total official accepted count was 70 species of birds. Not too bad for five hours of birding.