I recently spent and incredibly entertaining and productive day at the Village Creek Drying Beds in Arlington, Texas. This place, also known as the VCDB, is a favorite destination of Dallas/Fort Worth birders. The reason why is easy to determine. The VCDB is a mothballed water treatment facility. It consists of around 45 inactive two acre drying beds, many of which still hold water at certain times of the year. The whole facility is located just south of the Trinity River, and it attracts an amazing variety wildlife. Migratory birds in particular, but native mammals of all types can be found there as well.
In these pictures, a pair of American Avocets are wading and feeding in the shallow waters of drying bed number one.