Return to the nightmare...dream come true

We again left early, and as a matter of fact I'm not even going to mention that anymore. I always leave early. On the off chance I sleep in I'll let you know. 

We rolled back into Texas welcomed by ferruginous Hawks and  lark buntings to again look for cranes. Finding cranes was easy. Abundantly easy.  We went back to the same spot where we were the other day. Thousands of cranes were these. Mind boggling numbers to sort through and they were a little jumpy. At times the sky was full of them calling and flying and coming and going. It was almost an exercise in futility to even scan through the birds. I would get through part of the flock and they would shuffle again. After about an hour they settled down and began to tuck their heads to rest. Oh hell no.  

I am looking for a single bird that I am only going to find if I can see their heads. I decide to take a few steps closer. The part I got the less I had to deal with heat shimmer and that was also a bonus. Ten to 15 feet at a time I edged closer. I got about 75' closer that I had been when the birds began to get a little nervous. I didn't want to flush them again I just wanted them alert. Well my plan worked. Every bird on the ground stood tall and alert. Every bird was facing left. I scanned through once and on the return pan I saw what I was looking for. The dark face and neck that stood a little taller than the 15000 other birds. It was one of those moment where you're not quite sure if it's real if if you're imagining it after looking for so long at the same type of bird. But there it was. Plain as day. So easy to spot it made me wonder how I could have spent 8 hours the other day looking and not finding and another hour and change this morning looking again. But there it was. Photos weren't easy, but I managed a few. 

Can you find the Common Crane? 

The adrenaline definitely invigorated me and I was ready to bird hard out last few days. 

It was decision time again. It was 12:30pm.  Where to go. What to go for. What To Do. Well it wasn't that hard of a decision to make. Hook-billed kites had been seen with some regularity the last week at Bentson back in the valley. It was an easy decision. A 550 mile decision. A 9 hours drive decision. Easy. Bentson here we come.