Tricky
Briefly immortal
Lovebirds in Paradise
Return to the Valley
Sunday March 15, 2009
Coasting
It wasn’t too difficult to decide. We knew we wanted to go somewhere beautiful and birdy for our tenth anniversary, and the choice of returning to the Rio Grand Valley seemed natural. It is a one-day drive, suiting the current economic belt-tightening. It has a marvelous, varied and exotic selection of birds to view. And of course, there is the wonderful little inn we discovered on our last trip to give us a romantic hidey-hole from which to stage our avian adventures. So we made plans.
One plan I made, with the approval of my lovely, generous and easily bribed wife, was to purchase a camera. A real camera. I was tired of all my pictures looking like they had been taken through a dirty shower curtain, so I did some research (I asked two people) and came up with my choice: The Canon Eos 40D. It is a pretty substantial DSLR (That stands for Digital Single-Lens Reflex, for those of you whose photographic knowledge remains stuck in the Kodak Instamatic era) and it came with a nice 35:135 zoom lens. I could talk more about it, but I see your eyes are already starting to glaze over, so I’ll continue with my tale and let the pictures do the talking. (Each one is worth a thousand words, according to the latest exchange rate tables.)
After turning over the care and feeding and medicating of our felines to my trusty brother Johnny, we packed the rusty Honda and hit the dusty road. The road wasn’t terribly dusty, though, because it had been drizzling for three days. Indeed, the trip was fairly gray and moist, but not too bad, thanks to Elaine’s reading out Trivial Pursuit cards for four-hundred miles*. (Did you know that Winston Churchill once spoke with a stutter? Could be useful information.) We made pretty good time, so we decided we had time to make a brief stop at a State Park along the way. Lake Texana State Park is just outside of Edna, a little town famous for its obscurity, and the park is quite nice. Not a big place, but cram-packed full of birds.
The highlight of this side trip was found in a large Live Oak tree that stood, resting on its limbs, in the center of a roundabout. We heard something that sounded like a very loud squeeze-toy, and after circling the tree, saw near the apex, a humongous raptor. No scrawny little hawk this, it was a bloody great Bald Eagle. I fumbled for my new camera, but too slowly, as the Bird of Freedom sought his own freedom from our prying eyes. (Sigh) What a magnificent creature. What was Benjamin Franklin thinking when he proposed the Wild Turkey as our National Bird? National Drink, maybe.
*Note: We discovered after returning to Houston that Elaine passed her first Jeopardy audition and will be traveling to Charlotte, NC, to take a second audition. If she passes that, she’ll be on the TV show. I am bursting with pride. I hope the Trivial Pursuit helped.
We stopped in the Nature center to look at the snakes (Nature Centers are required by law to have snakes) and to ask the park ranger if we had been correct. “Yep” he drawled, (being a Texan park ranger) “We got a bunch of ‘em roostin’ roun’ these parts.” I was glad for the confirmation because he wasn’t fully mature and didn’t yet have the “bald” head. (The bird, not the ranger.)
On we drove. I hadn’t seen so many hawks since Dubya Bush selected his cabinet. The place was lousy with raptors, and we saw several red-tails, numerous kestrels, and a couple of the very beautiful Crested Caracaras, one of which soared nearly alongside our car for a half mile or so. The caracaras (also called Mexican Eagles) are striking raptors with a silvery bill and fierce-looking features. In truth, the caracara is more of a carrion-eater than a cold-blooded killer, but you couldn’t prove it by his looks. He’s so much more handsome than the ubiquitous vultures that litter the skies and roadkill sites.
We arrived in Los Fresnos in very good time, pausing by the resaca to ogle some waders and ducks. (“Resaca” is Spanish for “long, skinny lake formed by abandoned loops of an old river and usually teeming with birds” – Those Spanish know how to say a lot with one word.) There were black-necked stilts, looking like John Cleese doing a funny-walk through the shallow waters. One pink, flat-nosed Roseate Spoonbill sat on the other bank, and numerous ducks, including Blue-winged Teals and Northern Shovelers pointed their little tails to the sky to rake the muck on the bottom with their little beaks. Well, not quite correct. Northern Shovelers don’t have little beaks. They have enormous, Jimmy-Durante-sized schnozzes, and the comparison to shovels is apt. We snooped rudely with our binocs for a few minutes and headed for the Inn at Chachalaca Bend (henceforth I@CB) just down the road.
Big-Nosed Shovelers
Ospreying
Black-Nekkid Stilt
As we got out by the macaws’ cage, which was ensconced in the lush multicolored vegetation next to the office, we heard a tremendous racket. It seems that the Blackbird Boys have taken up residence near the feeders. By “Blackbird Boys”, I mean the pretty, but noisy, male Red-winged Blackbirds with their handsome shoulder epaulets. They (the blackbirds, not the epaulets) are famous for their ratchety cries of exuberance. I do not mean the ugly annoying grackles and starlings, famous mostly for being nest parasites and for crapping on your car. As I have read, the black-and-red boys are here in town for a big bachelor party and territory acquisition before the brown, stripey ladies arrive shortly.
As we stepped out to witness their bacchanal, another noise that sounded like a henhouse under fox attack arose from behind the bushes. Sauntering over, we saw the place was crawling with chachalacas, cackling and crowing like the chickens they are so closely related to. Almost fearless, they jeered and taunted us from the ground and low branches. (They fly about as well as chickens too.)
After greeting the owners and managers and meeting a few of our fellow guests, we unloaded to our beautiful and spacious room. We are staying in the “Great Kiskadee Room”. (All the rooms are named after birds. Go figure.) It is the favored room here because it has windows on three sides and a porch in a prime location, overlooking the feeders. I was sure we’d be comfortable here. We drove to Brownsville for dinner at an authentic, family-run Italian restaurant named Gio’s, which was just about average in terms of taste and price. But then, I was raised by an authentic Italian father who was a very good cook, so I’m harder to impress. Returning to the Inn, I attempted to do some journal work, but weariness from the long, rainy drive claimed my brain, and I sank into glorious slumber. In my dreams, the eagle was sitting on my shoulder.
Monday March 16, 2009
Millennium Falcon
Retiring early was a good idea. I woke at a reasonable hour and had time to do some writing before breakfast. The day was still cloudy and drizzly, so we went with our plan to go to Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge, a place we’d been before, because we knew it had some easy trails and good places to see birds. At breakfast we said hi to Jim and Mary, another birding couple whom we’d met the day before. They thought our idea was pretty good, so they decided to do the AWR too. After a tasty breakfast, we packed up and hit the Road from Hell. We knew it would be the RFH, because we drove it last year. Technically it is “paved”, but that is stretching the meaning of the word “paved” in a way that would put Gumby in traction. We toodled along slowly, dodging the Tycho Crater and other similar-sized potholes, while diligently scanning the wires, fences, fields and trees for birds.
And really, we shouldn’t complain about the slow drive, because it wasn’t time wasted. The wires were thick with familiar favorites, including not only more kestrels than we’d ever seen before, but also a really big kestrel with odd markings. More on him later. The real entertainment treat, though, was the roadrunners. As we neared the park entrance, we saw two roadrunners (who were merely walking, the slackers) on the side of the road. I recognized them, having seen them before, but I’d never really had a good look at the little ground cuckoos immortalized in Warner Brothers cartoons. Usually I was driving by too fast, but thanks to the potholes, today that was an impossibility.
Roadrunner with Dandruff
Roadrunner With Crest
Integrated Woodpeckers
But that brings up another point. This was the first time I’d had a chance to let my new camera stretch its metaphorical legs. I’d taken a snapshot or two around the house, but nothing really serious, so I was eager (and anxious) to see if: a) I’d made a good investment and b) if the tons of bad pictures I had taken in the past were really my fault. (They were.) So I took about a hundred road-runner pictures, mostly bad.
During the middle of the roadrunner porn, we were treated to another serendipitous spectacle. A nearby power pole was adorned with two woodpeckers. Not two of the same kind of woodpeckers but kinky, integrated woodpeckers. There was a Golden-fronted Woodpecker practically on top of a Ladder-backed Woodpecker. It was hot. (Do I seem to have a one-track mind here?)
Finally we entered the Wildlife Refuge. The difference between a wildlife refuge and a wildlife management area is that in refuges, they don’t allow you to “manage” the wildlife with a shotgun. The upshot of this is that most wildlife prefer being refuged to being managed. The Atascosa NWR is a very nice little area with tons of great wildlife. We first walked around the headquarter areas where they feed the birds, and there we saw Green Jays, Long-billed Thrashers, an Olive Sparrow, chachalacas, and peccaries. Peccaries, also known as javelinas or wild pigs, are not technically birds, but that doesn’t stop them from bellying up to the trough when the bird seed is put out. With all the activity, I took about a hundred more pictures.
Oh, and there were a couple of parties going on. We find from our bird books that the Red-winged Blackbirds aren’t exactly role models for happy family life. They arrive at their nesting grounds in groups of males and other groups of females. At the inn, we saw huge flocks of males, flashing their colors, singing bawdy songs and each trying to be the most macho bird on the feeder. Today we saw the packs of females bouncing from bush to bush, giggling and having one last glass of zinfandel before they hookup with some red-shouldered jerk who would pitch them a load of woo, then promptly abandon them and leave them to take care of the kids. Sort of like life at a redneck bar.
Insanely colorful Green Jay
Redwing ready to party
Next, we took the driving trip around the lagoon. It’s a great show. There are all the familiar egrets and ibis, but with lots of extras, like Ruddy Ducks, Northern Parulas, White-eyed Vireos, dowitchers, curlews, terns, Osprey… Okay. I’m boring you now. But I have to tell you about a couple of things.
The first was another of those large kestrels. But it was really too large for a kestrel, and the eye markings were different. If I hadn’t been such a dumb-ass and forgotten the big posters I’d just looked at in the office, I would have immediately recognized it as the legendary Aplomado Falcon, a Merlin-sized bird that was once numerous here, but has been mostly absent for a long time. Well, they’re trying to reintroduce them, and it seems to be working. As it turns out (we discovered later from our pictures) this was the second Aplomado Falcon we’d seen today. The first was that “large kestrel” we’d seen on the drive here. They are incredibly handsome birds with striking face and tail stripes and a keen, yellow-ringed eye. This one was keenly watching us, but didn’t seem to mind us taking several hundred pictures.
Kestrated
The extremely rare Aplamado Falcon
The other thing I have to talk about is the Reddish Egrets. We first met the Reddish Egrets about three years ago on a guided trip around the Galveston area. All egrets are waterfowl who spear their prey with their long sharp bills, but Reddish Egrets take a wholly different approach to it. Instead of standing still, posing for wildlife artists and signing autographs, they go running madly through the water with knees flashing high and wings spread wide. They literally chase the fish down and mug them. The unusual thing was that there weren’t one or two of them like we normally see, but at least a dozen, all strutting through the shallows like a bunch of tourists in the surf trying not to step on a sea urchin. The other odd thing about Reddish Egrets is that they come in two colors: reddish, as you might expect, and a white morph which is somewhat rarer. This time we saw at least three white morphs. You’d think they were regular Great Egrets if it weren’t for the bi-colored beaks and the fact that they were stomping around like Riverdance on fast-forward.
Ibises in the Bluebonnets
So we tooled leisurely through the park, stopping every time there was a wide, wet spot. Along the way, we repeatedly bumped into Jim and Mary and the four of us spent some time atop a birdwatching tower where Jim expertly scoped out a Northern Parula and an Orange Crested Warbler, two birds we have only managed to see when someone else finds them for us. (I’m counting them on my list anyway, dammit). We had some good conversation and shared birding stories. I sense the beginning of a friendship. (God knows birders need all the friends they can get, considering how weird they are.)
Back at the I@CB, we unloaded our optics and drove to Brownsville to find a suitable place to eat. We found one. We ate there. (I’m determined not to talk too much about food in this journal.) When we arrived back at the inn, who should we see but Jim and Mary, and we again shared stories. Jim is a science teacher, and Mary is an architect. They are a very interesting couple.
Now about those hundreds of pictures we took: Let me just say that I love my new camera and it has the potential for making me look like I don’t have my head up my f-stop when I’m taking pictures, but I need to exercise a little more judgment as to how many pictures I take. I spent two solid hours editing one day’s pictures, and I still didn’t finish. I need to learn when to throw stuff away.
So my photo editing used up the evening and I logged off and headed for my very comfy bed in the room with all the pictures of Greater Kiskadees looking down on me. I hope the kiskadees don’t find out I’ve been unfaithful to them with a roadrunner.
Tuesday March 17, 2009
Did Saint Patty Lead the Birds out of Bentsen?
Begorrah, t’was a perfectly lovely day for the feast of Saint Patty. I celebrated by wearing my green shirt and having a Patty of sausage for breakfast.
After talking with our new birding friends, we were convinced to go to Bentsen Rio Grande State Park, just south of McAllen and Mission. The park has a wonderful reputation for unusual birds and we were looking forward to padding our life-list quite a bit. We got out of Los Fresnos as quickly as possible, as the park is about a hundred miles from the inn, but still didn’t make it until mid-morning. As we loaded out, who should we run into but Jim and Mary (not completely accidentally), and they agreed that we could tag along with them and drink from their vast font of birding knowledge.
After checking in, we started walking the main roads because these are the ones with the feeders. Places with birdseed were mostly mobbed by red-wings, with a healthy sample of Green Jays, various doves, and the occasional Golden-fronted Woodpecker. This was the best look we’ve had at the bug-loving peckerhead. There is one at the inn who likes to hammer on the hollow plastic electronic box on the top of the house, but he’s still a little far for close inspection. Woodpeckers are the punk-rockers of the bird world because they like to pierce things and make noise just for the sheer hell of it.
Further down the path, we had some very good luck as we ran into a small group of Altimira Orioles. This bird is flagrantly orange with black racing stripes and is about as subtle as a peacock among sparrows. They never gave us clear camera shots, dodging between branches, but we got several pretty good looks. It is a gorgeous and irritating bird.
Greater Kiskadee - the RGV's signature bird
Couches Kingbird on the flowers
Elusive Altimira Oriole
If we hadn’t been with Jim, we would have seen a lot less. I swear, the man has eyes like Superman, and he can pick out and identify tiny little birds hiding in dense foliage. He found Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and Ruby-crowned Kinglets for us. These birds are about the size of a flying pecan, and I am humbled by my meager skills in identifying them. Photographing is pretty much out of the question.
We took the tram back to the park office and had a really terrible lunch consisting of Paleozoic ham sandwiches and soda. Afterwards, we hopped the tram back and motored down to the Hawk Tower observation station. Too bad the hawks decided to stay home. We saw a few of the usual waterfowl, including a Mallard-like thing called a Gadwall, but nothing to quack home about. Looking at the trail map, we decided to take a “nature” trail. The Nature Trail was a little less than two miles of rock-strewn, cactus-infested, bird-barren wilderness In which the only things remotely interesting were the ants and the cactus blossoms. We walked it as fast as we possibly could in order to catch the next tram, but two miles is a lot longer to feet than it is to a map. Unfortunately, we missed the tram and had a choice of waiting in the Bird-free Desert or hoofing it back.
We hitched up our tired hoofers and walked the long road back to the office. (Don’t ask me how long it was. I tore that lying map to shreds.) We arrived just before the tram returned and in time for Elaine to buy a book called Hawks From Every Angle because to duffers like us, one hawk pretty much looks like another when you’re just staring at their bottomsides. Back at I@CB, we bumped into Jim and Mary, who had also walked back and seemed fresh as two young healthy daisies, further feeding my seething envy of everything about them. I suppose I could work hard and get into shape, or I could just complain. Complaining takes less effort, so that’s probably what I’ll do.
I must say, in all truthful whining, this was the least productive of our days so far. We hope tomorrow will be better when we head for Boca Chica, Spanish for “chick’s mouth”. Something to do with kissing, I think.
Wednesday March 18, 2009
Beach Bumming
I rose early to take a walk around the grounds. The Inn at Chachalaca Bend is an incredible place with as many birds as some boring state parks with interminable paths and poor shuttle service (not that I’m bitter or anything). I looked out over the resaca and saw the fluffy pink morning clouds reflected in the clear water of the oxbow lake. I heard the boastful rattle of the Red-winged Blackbirds and the happy hooting of the Whistling Ducks. The Golden-fronted Woodpecker provided percussion by banging his head up against the plastic electrical box. How can anybody sleep through this
The Inn at Chachalaca Bend at Sunrise
Some can, apparently. When Elaine woke up, we packed up for a trip that would take us not only to Boca Chica, but back to south of Brownsville for a small wildlife sanctuary called Sabal Palm that had been talked up a lot on the birding grapevine. This was a trip designed to involve minimal walking, mostly because I am a lazy slug.
After one of the I@CB’s tasty and imaginative breakfasts, we packed up and headed into the morning sun. First there was a stop at a tourist shop for me to get a Panama hat, as I seem to have left mine at home. Twenty six dollars and some touristy pictures later, we resumed the trek. Along the way we saw mostly wading birds with a few hawks including one incredible view of what we have tentatively ID’d as a White-Tailed hawk.
The highlight of this part of the trip to Boca Chica was a stop by a bridge over a lagoon channel that was populated by the usual suspects, including the largest group of Snowy Egrets I’ve ever seen. They are usually solitary. Must be Spring in the air. But what really got me going was a bird that apparently is common as dirt in other places. It is called a Horned Lark, and it was just rummaging though the litter on the side of the road. Its bright yellow throat and black bib looked a bit like a meadowlark, but no yellow on the tummy. In spite of my fancy camera (which I haven’t figured out the tricks of yet) I could only get blurry pictures. When I told Jim about it later he looked at me like he was a New Yorker and I’d just told him excitedly that I’d seen a pigeon. Well, that’s too bad. It was a lifer (first identification ever) for me and I don’t care if Jim kills Horned Larks the way he would common pests or insurance salesmen.
White Tail - Black neck
Leave no ruddy stone unturned
We drove until the land ended at Boca Chica NWR and proceeded to drive up the firm sand beach, pausing to snap pics of Ruddy Turnstones (so named because they are ruddy and they turn stones over. Really.) as well as Ring-billed Gulls, Herring Gulls, Laughing Gulls and Bald E-Gulls (<-just kidding). Also, there were various peeps (small, nondescript shore birds without publicity agents) and Sanderlings (so named because of their tendency to refinish furniture). This was entertaining and uneventful. At least it was uneventful until I got Carmen (Carmen MyHonda is the name of my little car) stuck in high sand and had to push it out while the people on the beach, mostly people who drove big vehicles with oversized tires, pointed and laughed. Oh well. It was entertaining for some people.
I apologized to Carmen, and we headed back west toward the Sabal Palm Audubon Center and Sanctuary. This place has a very good reputation, and the walks are indeed very pleasant and well maintained. We didn’t see much new at first, though. Grebes, kingbirds, kiskadees. One distant bird was probably a Summer Tanager, but their color is so similar to the common-as-dirt Cardinals, I wouldn’t swear to it. The biggest excitement came back at the feeding center by the office. There, a bunch of Green Jays and White-tipped Doves were rumbling with a gang of chachalacas over command of the best feeding turf. The tension reached its climax when one of the leaders of the Chachalaca Chachas tried to commandeer the songbird feeder. There’s only one problem. Chachas are not songbirds. They are chicken-sized, chicken-sounding, and probably chicken-flavored birds. The result was that the wailing fowl was taken for a spin on the feeder until it became a victim of centrifugal force. By the time he and the shredded remnants of his dignity were finally hurled from the precarious perch, I was laughing my ass off. (You can hear me laughing on the movie Elaine took.)
Oversized Chachalaca
Orioles in the hood
That is when we saw it. That shade of orange can mean only one thing: oriole. This was a Hooded Oriole, and it was blithely and actively working on the grapefruits and oranges that they nail to the trees to attract just this sort of visitor in the Wildlife Refuges. What an ostentatiously gorgeous featherball! Again, I put my new camera through the paces, taking so many pictures that, between the oriole and the lark, I would be forced to spend my evening editing out all the ones that were virtually identical.
So it was a very good day for birding. At least two lifers, and my feet didn’t hurt afterward. What more can you ask?
Thursday March 19, 2009
A Fine Kettle of Hawks
This morning I discovered Golden-fronted Woodpeckers nesting in the lodge next door. There is a knothole in the wood by the cupola, and I saw one GFW pop in, then leave, after which another poked its head out. It was unbearably cute. Almost like a scene from Wild Kingdom or some cloyingly sweet Disney movie. After my morning stroll, we ate a fine frittata and packed up for the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge. Jim and Mary had indicated that this was a very good place.
They were right. As we were unpacking our gear in the parking lot, a kettle of raptors flew over us. (For those who might be thinking someone threw a cauldron of boiling birds above our heads, I should explain that “kettle” is high-falootin’ birder talk for a whole bunch of birds soaring in circles.) There were literally hundreds of birds in this kettle, and even a casual glance indicated that they were of widely varied kinds. Usually when you see a kettle, it is vultures. For vultures, the kettle is the preferred travel venue, but for hawks, it is fairly unusual except during migration. This was migration. The one hawk that stood out in these kettles was the Broad-winged Hawk, with its pale underside and single band on the bottom of the tail. I’d seen approximately one before today. I increased that number by a few hundred.
You see, most large soaring birds are too busy looking for something to kill or something already dead to eat, to worry about flapping their wings. What they like to do is ride the thermals. Thermals are columns of warm air that rise high from warm spots on the ground, carrying the lazy raptors with them. The skies above the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge were packed with lazy raptors, circling… or more correctly helixing. Since they are migrating, their circles have a target destination, and the kettles drift (lazily, of course) from one horizon to the other.
But I shouldn’t just badmouth lazy raptors. I should also badmouth lazy Anhingas while I am at it. We also saw a large flock of the strange fish-spearing birds doing the circle-drift. They were quite close, and I got some decent pictures. By comparison, most of the pictures of the hawk kettles look more like raisins on a piece of blue felt.
Anhinga squadron
Would you like a good threshing?
We also met some hawk counters. These dedicated people stand in the sun all day counting how many hawks go by. They divide the sky into sections and each person only counts one section, so they don’t wind up re-counting all the hawks. They are trained to recognize hawks by subtle things like how many stripes they have on their tails and how they hold their wings and whether or not they have out-of-state license plates. These guys are good. Crazy, but good.
We stood in the sun with the hawk-counters as long as we could stand it, but being even lazier than raptors on vacation, we didn’t want to do anything that remotely resembled work. We decided to walk one of the nature trails. Like many of the parks around here, the SANWR has a large selection of nature trails for people of every level of hardiness. Being wimps, we took the shortest one. Luckily, these parks also cater to wimps because their most improved and groomed trails are usually the shortest. Of course, this might be a budget thing.
The trail we took (Don’t ask me the name. I threw away the trail map.) was one with three pond overviews. We didn’t see anything new, though the looks at the Least Grebe were better than I’d ever seen, and we got an excellent comparison look at Least and Pied-billed Grebes. The Pied-bill has a spot on his bill. Comes from eating pie, I figure.
There was a hilarious episode of a Long-billed Thrasher thrashing. Seriously. The birds go digging and rolling through the leaves, looking for the body of Jimmy Hoffa. This one gave it his best effort. Elaine took a long movie (my SLR won’t take movies) and we got some great pics. Handsome bird, the Long-billed Thrasher. Good singer too. Quite the comedian as well. He could have his own variety show. Also there was an interesting plant with spiny fruit that looked like no sane animal would touch it.
The shuttle trip was okay, but not great. It was mostly about the history of the park, including a stop at a family cemetery. All in all, I’d have rather been standing in the sun counting hawks.
We left a little early and stopped at the Estero Llano Grande state park to see if they had a guided bird-walk scheduled for the next day. Well, they did, but that was just a bonus. I finally saw a Fulvous Whistling Duck. Elaine says “fulvous” sounds like an insult, and I tend to agree, but the ducks, though fulvous, were quite handsome in their burnt-sienna swimming suits. Also, I saw (and photographed!) a rarity: a bat flying around in broad daylight. Cute little sucker. Well, not really a “sucker”. It wasn’t a vampire bat. I have to wonder what he was doing up so late
Yes, I have been eating pie. Why do you ask?
Why do I have to be least?
We stopped at a place called the Blue Onion for a very tasty dinner and headed back to I@CB, stopping only to photograph a convenient Osprey.
I’m going to have to streamline my journaling and picture-sorting because I’m spending too much of my vacation figuring out whether or not I had a good time.
We spent most of the evening with Jim and Mary, who were leaving the next day, and it was a wonderful conversation, spanning not just birding, but multiple topics, like teaching, local architecture, and being married for a long time. We learned a lot from them and will miss them.
Friday March 20, 2009
Birdwatching with the Stars
We had to skip breakfast this morning in order to get to the Estero Llano Grande in time for the guided bird-walk. We made it in time to stop for a fast-food breakfast near the park and proceeded to the dock where the walk started. To my surprise, the walk wasn’t around the ponds. It was in a nearby neighborhood which has been bought by the park, but a “grandfather clause” allows the residents to stay in their trailer homes for quite a long while. I thought this would be lame, but again, this shows what an idiot I am.
The neighborhood walk had at least three “lifers” for me, including the star of the show, a Black-throated Magpie-jay. The Black-throated Magpie-jay is not native, but this one had escaped and gone feral. It is a large, long-tailed, bird with a cute and perky crest. I don’t mind that it is an illegal immigrant. (Unfortunately, neither of us could get a good picture, so I borrowed one off the internet.) Also, we saw Red-crowned Parrots, which seem too tropical to be here in the US, but here they are. Raucous and brazen, they buzzed the neighborhood throughout the whole trip. I also saw a Black-and-white Warbler, who was probably embarrassed by being in the company of such chromatic cousins. It was a surprisingly good walk, but I was shamed by the expertise of the experienced birders there. They could name a bird by seeing its shadow or smelling its breath on the wind. I’ve either got to work harder or just give up ever being in their class. Given my famous tendency for torpor, I expect it will be the latter.
After walking the subdivision, we went into the park proper. We reviewed the pond birds, which included an unusual (for us Cinnamon Teal) and spotting another lifer for us, a Lesser Goldfinch, we decided to do some waterbirding. Some claim this is tantamount to torture, but I kinda like it. Waterbirds are easy to see and photograph. None of that damn warbler stuff that has you bending over backwards staring at a tiny bird hiding behind the leaves of a tree. We also saw a Common Parauque, which is a kind of nightjar. Supposedly it is related to nightingales, but looks nothing like Florence’s picture in history books. It is damn nearly impossible to see it at all, as it is uncommonly well camouflaged. We also saw a cute little Green Kingfisher zipping over the water and an Eastern Screech Owl in a birdhouse. Mostly it was CIA-sanctioned waterbirding though.
We left shortly after noon and stopped at a very classy Italian joint in Weslaco for lunch. We then headed back to the inn, as we were both worn down from such an early start.
After a short nap, we decided to drive the local roads that lead toward Atascosa NWR. Yeah, we’d already been there, but it was so great and so convenient, we couldn’t resist going back. It was another good trip, and more roadrunners performed for us. They are brave and personable birds who love to perform. I guess they resent their TV show being cancelled.
We also saw lots of kestrels and a pond full of Roseate Spoonbills before we gave it up and retired. This was to be our last night at the Inn at Chachalaca Bend, and we needed to pack. Also, the next day was to be our tenth wedding anniversary, and I suspected it might entail a certain of exhausting activity.
Saturday March 21, 2009
Ten Years Together
We rose early, finished packing, had our last breakfast at the I@CB and said tearful goodbyes to Cleve, Rosemary, and Jesse. This is an absolutely fabulous place and I recommend it to anyone, even those who think birds are best dealt with by Colonel Sanders and his ilk. The rooms are so comfy, the beds are so plush, the scenery is so… um… scenic. No wonder it is such a favored place for weddings.
Ironically, it was due to a wedding that we couldn’t stay for our anniversary. A long-scheduled nuptial ceremony had booked all the rooms for Saturday night. A bit of a shame, but we had a backup plan. We returned to another of our favorite B&Bs, this one in Rockport Texas near the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The Hoopes’ House was the place we had gone to last spring to see the Whooping Cranes. The trip was quite pleasant, with lots of polehawks (my generic term for a hawk on a telephone pole) and a good number of those aerobatic marvels, the Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, to bless our passing.
Along the way, we stopped to see our good friend Darth Rotor (not his real name) who is one of the people I have met on my discussion forums. He is a military guy with an intelligence background and a slightly more conservative bent than Elaine and I. In spite of our doctrinal differences, we have become close friends and mutual admirers, as we both love bad jokes and good beer. We had lunch at a fascinating place in Corpus Christi called The Sultan, which had great gyros, and the unusual sausage dish that Darth ordered was heaven in meatloaf form. We shared a lot of laughs and only enough beer that I wouldn’t be unsafe to be driving. We made our fond goodbyes and headed back up the coast.
We got to Rockport early in the afternoon and took a quick zip over to Goose Island State Park where we saw some familiar favorites, including “Elvis Terns”. Elvis Terns (actually Royal Terns) have a head of black, slicked-back hair, big mouths, and sing loudly and raucously. We also called the charter company to make reservations for the Whooping Crane trip, and then we headed to a gallery/restaurant called Cheryl’s By the Bay to have some artfully prepared food. We then retired early to celebrate our anniversary.
That is all I’m telling you.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Big Whoop
Regretfully, we had to skip breakfast again because of our addiction to birds. This was a real shame because the Hoopes’ House in Rockport makes one of the most sinfully delicious breakfasts to be found anywhere. Sinful, because it always includes a large dessert which simply cannot be bypassed once you have been seated at the table. Sadly, we never got that far.
But it wasn’t for naught. The boat trip to the barrier island sanctuaries to see the Whooping Cranes and their neighbors was extremely pleasant. We got within a few feet of a pair of Whoopers and got great pictures of them in various provocative poses. We also spent some time floating within a pod of Atlantic Porpoises who were spouting and barking happily. Elaine got the most incredible picture of a Northern Harrier in flight and another of a Brown Pelican taking to the air. My big ol’ expensive camera didn’t get anything nearly so good.
Northern Harrier in flight.
Brown Pelican briefly taking off
Big Whoop!
The boat also stopped by a rookery. No, it’s not a place where they make chess pieces; it is a place where birds go to make whoopee. This rookery had lots of Great Blue Herons and Reddish Egrets. I’ve seen Great Blue rookeries, but this was my first time to see the Reddish Egrets competing for mates. If their mating dance is more frenetic than their fishing dance, they’ll probably be in traction for two weeks after a big night on the town.
I noticed that the Reddish Egret beaks were redder than I’d ever seen them before. Same for the Laughing Gulls. There was a pair of Forster’s Terns that were in full breeding plumage too. Everybody was dressed up for the big dance.
But all good things must end, and we returned to shore, and then to Houston. All the way home, Elaine read Trivial Pursuit and joined me in singing along with the music on our mutually beloved CDs. After ten years of evaluating her, I think she’s a keeper. I think she feels the same way about me. I just hope she doesn’t expect me to do a dance.
Love among the Egrets
Terns of Endearment
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Special bonus track! A musical interlude
(To the tune of American Pie)
My, my, hear the Golden-fronts cry
Chachalacas at resacas, but you can’t make ‘em fly
And Pied-billed Grebes with their bills stuck in pie
Singing “Let’s send some Anhingas to dry
Let’s send some Anhingas to dry.
Did you bring your book of birds
And did you memorize every word
So that you can make the calls?
And do you agree with Audubon
Can you go birding with a gun
Just so you can paint them all?
And as I watched the egrets dance
Their bills all red with hot romance
The raptors circled high
The terns and gulls flew by
And the Whistling Ducks quacked in the dawn
Wild Turkeys strutted on the lawn
And kiskadees cried out “Come-ON”
So, hey, let’s watch ‘em fly.
We’ll all be singing
My, my, hear the Golden-fronts cry
Chachalacas at resacas, but you can’t make ‘em fly
And Pied-billed Grebes with their bills stuck in pie
Singing “Let’s send some Anhingas to dry
Let’s send some Anhingas to dry.
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