I woke up nice and early one November morning and made my way towards the coast. After a chilly ride on the Galveston-Bolivar Ferry, I arrived at Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary just in time for sunrise. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and the birds were plentiful.
Short-Billed Dowitchers' feeding has been compared to a sewing machine: constantly poking into the sand to find invertebrates. Usually they probe and eat in the same motion, but this worm was putting up a fight. The hungry dowitcher struggling to pull out its meal made for a great feeding shot.
Willets seem to be one of the more cooperative shorebirds and this one was no exception. He made quite the splash catching this snail. Typically when birds grab food, their third eyelid covers their eye, making them look like a zombie. I was very happy to see that the Willet's eye was not only visible, but illuminated with a catchlight.
Although this picture is nothing special, the bird is actually quite rare. I noticed two gulls on a sandbar, somewhat separated from the other gulls on the mudflats. Initially I assumed they were juvenile Herring Gulls, but upon further investigation, it turns out these two gulls (one pictured above) were first-year Thayer's-type Iceland Gulls based off of the pale tips on the dark brown primary feathers and the pale brown tertial feathers. Interestingly, Thayer's Gulls and Iceland Gulls were considered separate species until getting lumped together in 2017.