On my way home from Port Aransas, Texas, I took time to bird in San Angelo State Park in San Angelo, Texas, and at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge at Roswell, New Mexico.

My drive to San Angelo was mostly rainy.  So I didn’t have any opportunities to bird that day.  I did stop in a little town to get a pic of an old building that looked interesting.

I arrived in San Angelo with steady rain.  When I awoke the next morning, it was pretty foggy.  So birding conditions were not good at all.  But I still managed to get a quite a few sightings. I didn’t stay long as I wanted to have some time to bird at Bitter Lake.

The best find of the morning was seeing a female Vermillion Flycatcher building her nest.  She would get some moss or grass and place it in the nest and then check it for comfort.  Then go get another piece to add.  I never did see the male.

There wasn’t too much activity at Bitter Lake as I arrived there around midday.  After driving around for a little while and hiking a couple of short paths, I managed to find a few birds.

The highlight of the day though was seeing a variety of nightjars! These birds are so difficult to find in the wild.  But on this visit, they were all perched out in the open and very close to the road.  Awesome! I was able to get some good photographs!  Even with that advantage, it was still very difficult to identify the birds.  I mostly used size as a reference for the Common Poorwill as it is the smallest of the nightjars.  The Common Nighthawk flew and sang right after I took the up-close photo which made it easy to identify.

I think you’ll agree these are really cool birds!

That concludes my 10-day trip to the gulf coast and all the wonderful bird sightings I was able to see during my travels.  I got 27 new lifers and my total number of lifer bird sightings is now at 396!!!