We started out today by getting an oil change and making copies of datasheets. Unfortunately I left my phone at Penzoil, and had to go back for it to Stuttgart at the end of the day! It wasn't too far, and we would have had to go back anyways for a hotel, since there was none near Dewitt. We got seven surveys done, and on the last one, I ended up finding 16 snipe; two clusters of 7 hiding in some rice, and one pair feeding in an open area. All were in a rice field, and the camoflague was unbelieveable. After counting them and filling out the datasheet for all of them, I looked back to where they had been, and all of them were basically invisible. In the sun, their stripes appeared a little lighter than the rice around them, but with increasing clouds, the stripes were nearly the same color as the rice. They weren't incredibly active, and most of them were "hunkered" down into the ruts. Looking for cryptic birds can be incredibly frustrating. Because of this, finding them is extremely rewarding. This brings my total number of snipe for the season to 175, and our group total to 192.
Other birds of note were an increasing number of great egrets. We saw at least 4 throughout the day. Tomorrow we head south a little farther, and will likely start seeing a larger variety of shorebirds, herons, and egrets.
great egret flying over flooded rice field
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