Bird Sightings – Page 6 – The Hermits' Rest

It’s Cold So It Must Be December

I realize we had an earlier cold snap, but the front that came through last night (all the way to Rockport/Fulton) looks like it wants to stick around. I can’t complain, because we got at least a little rain at the ranch (I will know more tomorrow). It looks like maybe more rain is coming to replenish the water table.

It rained last night, but wasn’t as windy at Goose Island. I was able to take one fairly pleasant walk that was only moderately cold. Since the wind was less, I could use Merlin, and identified two more life list birds! One I saw pretty well, a White-tailed Kite. The other was a Short-Billed Dowitcher, which I can’t tell from a Dunlin or Long-billed Curlew. I need to go back to the sanctuary in Port Aransas where they are all together so I can compare.

All sorts of fun birds were out, even a Palm Warbler and a very persistent Yellowthroat, so while I waited on IT to fix something at work, I went back to the pier. It was getting colder, but I enjoyed seeing some cannonball jellies, oystercatchers, very loud Caspian Terns, and so many loons. The highlight, though, was when I realized the slapping noises I heard were dozens of fish jumping out of the water! I’ve always enjoyed it since I was a kid watching mullets jump in the canals in South Florida.

After I got some work done, we drove home with no major issues (hurray) in light rain. Ooh, on our way out of the park, a gorgeous fox crossed the road in front of us, turned to look for a few seconds, then quietly disappeared into the brush. What a great farewell!

I had time once we got home to do my beginning-of-the-month tasks, like tallying the birds at the ranch for November. We had 110 species, which I find pretty darned impressive. I’ve slowed down with new species, which was only one. Of course, my mind is a blank…but you can see the list right here.

I still have to tally up the bird sanctuary list, which I hope to do tomorrow or at least later this week. I did bring the porch plants inside, just in case it freezes. Ah. It’s December!

That Windblown Look Isn’t Fun to Get

Last night the wind blew so hard that I felt like I was on a boat again, but this time the boat was in a major squall—not a typhoon but pretty bad.

Nonetheless, I got up early so I could go on a birding walk with a man named Kelly, who’s recently moved here in Rockport, who really knows his stuff. I was glad that Bernice, who works at the park office, mentioned it to me. But whoa, the temperature in the 50s, combined with cloudy skies and biting winds, made for mighty unpleasant circumstances.

I’m as cold as I look, and glad for the borrowed hat.

We started out on the big pier near our site, where nothing blocked the wind. I was glad for the railings and that I didn’t bring the big camera! We did see some interesting birds, though it was hard to see them well due to shaking hands holding the binoculars.

Mercifully, Kelly took us away and we went to the jetty I visited yesterday, when it was balmy at just slightly cloudy. There were some gorgeous Roseate Spoonbills flying around, and I have to tell you all that pinkness flying around with the dark gray background was striking, even in the wind. I was too cold to take pictures, so use your imagination.

We then caravanned back over to the Whooping Cranes, where Bernice and I got to see some flying overhead and whooping! We were like two little kids in our excitement! We no longer cared about the cold and were very happy to share our joy with others who were there. The birders here are very collegial.

While that was all fun, I had gotten a chill and didn’t get myself warm, despite tea and a warm meal, until I’d had a little nap in bed. Yow. Still, I dragged myself back outside in the afternoon, and went on a walk around the trail in the other part of Goose Island State Park.

Ooh, they have nice, large campsites with large trees in that part of the park. I enjoyed a relatively wind-free stroll through a coastal oak woodland full of beautiful understory plants like sweet bay, wax myrtle, and beautyberry. I felt a lot better when I got back to the motorhome.

I didn’t get to do everything I wanted to on this trip, so we will be back. I really like it here. At least there are birders in enough numbers to balance out the air boaters and duck hunters. And seafood!

We waited to leave until tomorrow to avoid traffic today. I’ll figure out how get some work in tomorrow. There will be lots of time before we leave.

Birds, Butterflies and Bliss

Yesterday was a lot of fun,but it tired me out so I fell asleep and didn’t have a chance to blog. Sorry about that. I also took hundreds and hundreds of pictures. It seems I will only share a few.

Lee took this with the Canon EOS Rebel T7 and the macro lens.

In the morning I walked over to the jetty near where we are staying at Goose Island State Park. There I was delighted to see many different kinds of birds, especially herons and egrets. I enjoyed watching a tricolored heron and a snowy egret having a little battle over some kind of morsel. Those are some beautiful birds.

One of the cutest sights I saw was a little group of Dunlins, which are shorebirds and a new lifer for me! They were all huddled together with their little heads tucked under their wings like they were trying to get a nap in before something was supposed to happen. I did finally get one picture of one of them with its head up and it’s such a beautiful little round brown birds. Of course, there were others, too. Check it out!

Over in the marshy area there were many egrets. I saw a beautiful little blue heron, many great egrets and a ruffly looking great blue heron.

There were also ibises. There were a number of white ibises, but the most amazing part were the juvenile White Ibises, which are gorgeous brown and white little speckled birds. Well they’re actually big birds. I really like some of the pictures I got of themwith the brownish foliage all around them, I think that’s very artistic.

Later in the day, Lee and I got in the Jeep and drove around to find more birds. The first place we went was the famous big tree that is part of this park.

We weren’t there very long however because Park staff told us that there were a whole lot of whipping cranes and sandhill cranes together right around the corner so we sort of flew off to go see those running right past my friend, Cindy and her husband. Oops.

I was watching you like a hawk, says the Osprey.

The cranes were beautiful as always, and it was very nice to see the sandhill cranes right next to the whooping cranes to compare their size and coloring. It makes it a lot easier to remember, which is which.

They were joined by some lovely Roseate Spoonbills, and you can’t complain about pink birds ever. We met and talked to a few people and enjoyed that as well and took some pictures of extremely friendly seagulls.

After that, we made a fruitless trip over to where the great blue heron rookery is forgetting the fact that it is not great blue Heron breeding season so there weren’t any great blue Heron there I did see a Caracara, Osprey, and some other birds. Of course, the trees are still beautiful, so it wasn’t a waste of time.

We drove down the road a little bit and found a very nice place called the Linda S.Castro Nature Sanctuary, where there were so many butterflies. It was rivaling the national butterflies center. I’m not kidding. We found a lot of butterflies mostly Gulf Fritillaries and southern whites. (Golf rivalries, golf ferries, golf fiddle Aries—I would like to point out that the dictation software does not understand “Gulf Fritillaries).

This is cool. The fruit of the scarletfruit passionflower

There were lots of paths through some beautiful native plants and we got some good pictures of the scenery around that sanctuary. The people who made it did a very good job and it’s quite a nice place to go. I recommend it to anyone even though it’s sort of hiding we met a nice couple (the guy is a Master Naturalist) there and talked to them about different places to go and look at birds and plants and I think they’re gonna have a good time, the rest of their visit. Everyone is so dang friendly here.

We then headed over to one final place which is the thule sanctuary. I went there before with Linda Jo and Ann and it was a nice place to walk around though. There weren’t very many birds. I got a lot of plant photos and Lee got some very good ones using the macro lens.

By that time, we were tired of walking around and looking at birds and plants so we went to find some food. after all it was our anniversary and we needed a nice anniversary dinner. We found a nice place on a bay next to a harbor we sat outside to eat and got to watch many, many birds while we were waiting for our food, including belted kingfishers, ospreys, and many terns and gulls. I got to eat oysters and fish, and Lee enjoyed his bacon-wrapped shrimp.

That’s a cucumber margarita. I liked it!

It was a successful day of fairly good weather and lots of fun. Happy 17th anniversary to us!

The Motorhome’s a-Rockin’

Today after the usual leisurely preparations, we drove down to the Rockport area to camp at Goode Island State Park. I now wish I’d booked it longer, since it will rain tomorrow and be pretty cold Sunday. Nonetheless, I bet we can find ways to see birds and use the cameras! Something other than sparrows! Yes!

Like blurry Pelicans! Only bird I saw before it got dark.

It’s a nice drive here, and I love all the small towns and large oak trees we see. There were birds. Here are “a few” vultures on a tower. The next tower over had zero vultures.

We are getting good at setting up the motorhome quickly, which is good, because we lost a half hour of light when the staff at the truck stop we visited to fuel up repeatedly got our ZIP Code wrong or programmed to pay for the wrong pump. I’d stayed inside and went to lie down on the bed and ended up having a nice nap.

The water and electricity are on the “wrong” side at this campsite, but we managed to pull the hose and power cord over with room to spare. And with no trees, Lee had no trouble hooking up the satellite receiver. I only had a few minutes to look around, but I’m pretty excited about all the water surrounding us. There’s a lot of wading and swimming bird habitat!

You can see we’re in the last site before the end of the island.

Right now, though, the wind is so strong that it feels like we are in a boat. This is a heavy vehicle, but we are rocking. The waves are really attacking the bulkheads, too. By morning the tide will be lower and maybe it will be calmer. We will see!

Feeling gratitudinal

Even though I didn’t plan it this way, Thanksgiving at the Hermits’ Rest was very pleasant. There was a distinct lack of drama, argument, and stress. And there was an abundance of birds.

Hello, I’m a Harris’s Sparrow, until they change my name.

Since I simplified the meal, I didn’t stress over cooking, which gave me lots of time to play with the camera (and get frustrated by the image transfer software), as well as feed and pet animals. I had a good morning.

Since I had an easy fresh turkey breast to roast, the only dishes I had to carefully cook were my cranberry sauce and oyster dressing. Both came out great. I made green beans and mashed potatoes later, and the only disaster was gravy boiling over. Not bad. I did make a lot of food, but not as much as usual.

Not shown are green beans with mushrooms and rolls (and pie)

My son has decided not to eat Thanksgiving dinner. I understand and respect it, since I have no interest in the Pilgrim stuff. I read some healing thoughts from Native Americans on using this time for gratitude and friendship, so I went with that. After all, we mostly ate food from the Americas, so that worked for me.

Why does everyone post photos of their meals? I’m not sure. I’m just glad I’ve learned to simplify. This was all delicious, especially the dressing.

I did get to enjoy a nice long visit with my son, which doesn’t happen very often. It was fun comparing notes on local owls and sharing stories of past adventures.

Drinking coffee and sitting in the sun. Nice.

Anita was our only guest at the table, so I’m very glad she was able to join us. She, Lee, and I had such a relaxing and comfortable meal, then just hung out. The hanging out parts were the best thing about the day.

Yep, today I had much to be grateful for. I heard from many family members and friends, too.

It’s heartwarming to be reminded of all your connections all over the country. And we are connected through this means of communication as well, so remember that!

Vlassic reminds you that he’s a connection, too. My formerly jet-black dog!

Today was the least stressful Thanksgiving ever, though it’s been getting better every year. Tomorrow we go visit the birds at Port Aransas, and I hope I can get lots of birding in before the next cold front! I’ll leave you with more of today’s photos. Some I won’t label. Those will be house sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, or White-crowned Sparrows

Maybe Next Time I’ll See the Eagle

It was extra chilly this morning, so I couldn’t sit out and watch birds as long as I wanted to. The wind was really strong and I was not having a good time so I left my phone outside to listen to birds while I came inside and painted a rock yellow. That’s my idea of a good time.

This guy was so chilly it didn’t hop away. Ponderous spur-throat grasshopper.

When I went back outside to check on my phone, I heard a very loud noise that sounded like an extra loud Red-tailed Hawk. When I got to the phone, I looked down at my Merlin record to find out that I had actually missed seeing a Bald Eagle flying over our house. It was heard again later in the morning, so I guess there really was a non-Mexican eagle around, which is rather rare for here.

AI interpretation of a Bald Eagle flying over our house. We seem to have many corgi mix dogs.

Later in the morning, I took all my new glasses back to the glasses place and said I can’t see out of them. So they are having all three pairs remade, so maybe I can see the eagle next time it flies by. It was very disappointing that no matter how hard I tried, I really couldn’t see very well out of the new prescription. I couldn’t read street signs and in the evenings everything was very, very blurry. My guess is that an error was made somewhere in the process.

Looking at glasses I didn’t get to take home.

The two biggest excitements of the rest of the day we’re having lunch with Pamela and only Pamela (because there were no other friends to hang out with today) and then going to the bakery and getting day old sticky buns. I do love the sticky buns. I believe I’ve mentioned how much I like Shirley Mae’s bakery before.

Back at home I finished painting the rock. It’s going to be a Thanksgiving rock for my one piece of table decor. I can’t make my life any more interesting than it is. Sigh. One more day of no work down.

The AI thingy did a much better rendition of my rock.

Excitement starts tomorrow because it’s Thanksgiving and I get to cook oyster dressing. And that’s enough of a blog for today.

Muddle Muddle

I’m just muddling through, but it’s a successful muddle, I guess. Most things I intended to accomplish today got accomplished, so I’m calling it good.

I even learned how to erase ugly power lines and make phone photos unnaturally bright.

Anyway, I muddled through making my hair more blue and did a particularly crappy job of it. I wish I could get to the back of my head more easily. I should pay my hair lady to do it next time.

Sorta blue. This shows me taking a regular photo and making it portrait mode.

Could my day get more exciting? Sure. I bought food for the very small Thanksgiving meal I will cook Thursday and was friendly to everyone I encountered. Why not? I do hope I don’t have to drive to Temple any more this week, though. People drive weird. Everywhere.

This is supposedly rose gold. Well, the camera a fun new toy, even if it isn’t the fanciest phone one.

I would have taken lots of bird photos today, but the memory card was hiding (not really—Lee had it). So I enjoyed the binoculars a lot. This evening I must have spent five minutes watching a female Cardinal chowing down on juicy, black greenbrier berries. Like I’ve said before, our woods provides plenty of bird food.

I’d take some if you have it to me. Sad phone photo.

That’s about all the excitement other than bird stuff. Horse’s are fine but still muddy, and the fowl are enjoying their daily food as usual. Lee, the dogs, and I are also content.

Penney is very content. She loves Lee’s porch chair.

Yep, muddled through another day.

Mountain Girl Wannabe

Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer? Why?

I grew up near beaches and I like them okay, though I prefer marshy land near beaches, which have more interesting birds.

Beach sunsets are pretty fine! I do love Hilton Head.

But I really love mountains and always have. I looked forward to visiting Chattanooga, where my paternal grandmother lived, each summer so we could look at streams, go through tunnels, and drive along the Blue Ridge Mountains.

As an adult, I’ve treasured my visits to other mountains in all weather. There are really good birds, too, and each area is so different! if I were rich, I’d head right over to Breckenridge and hike and snowshoe and be just fine. Or maybe Ruidoso, since it’s in another state I love.

Just dreaming. I’m here in Texas looking at a small hill. At least I have all these birds!

Look. I finally took bird photos you can identify as birds. Eastern Phoebe.

Off topic, but I enjoyed watching a huge flock of Brown-headed Cowbirds roosting and then departing en masse this morning. I had the good camera (Cameron EOSR5 Mark II) and telephoto lens in the birding area. Distance shots are from the phone camera.

I also dragged the camera to the Wild Wings Bird Sanctuary to practice close-ups. I got lots of chickadees and titmice at the feeders and a few others. I think a couple are pretty good. At least you can see details on them. I’m gonna practice this week so my camera muscles will be all strong for next weekend. Anyway, here are cute titmice.

And here are just a few Carolina Chickadees. They pose well.

I also got a couple of nice shots of water dripping into the birdbath. Look carefully and you will see many honeybees from the nearby hives.

I took lots of photos of new Wildscape plants, but that will be in a Master Naturalist blog. But here are a couple of insects!

So, whee. Mountains are great, but no matter where you are, there are birds, insects, and plants to explore.

Stumped

Two meanings to this: one is I’m still stumped as to why my mental health tanked so hard—I couldn’t even be trying myself to go to my riding lesson today. I was too woozy to feel safe riding even good old Apache.

That meant I got to be home for sunset and the welcome rain that followed.

The second way I’m stumped is good, though. I now have a very large stump in my birding area!

This tree was a hazard on a main road and had to be removed. Lucky for me, the tree’s pieces were destined for our burn pile, and I had mentioned how cool it would be to use a large slice as a bird feeding platform.

This was the first piece I saw. Nowhere near as big as the one I got.

I was working on the porch this morning so I could also watch birds, when I heard the unmistakeable sound of our ancient backhoe approaching. It was beating the stump!

The regular tractor couldn’t carry this!

I have to give them credit, they got me the best stump ever. It’s huge! And when it gets trimmed it will have two heights of at least somewhat level surface that the dogs can’t get to. And since it’s inside our fence, curious cows won’t be able to mess with any feeding or watering stuff I put up there.

The plan is to anchor the birdbath on there, too, so it won’t fall over.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with it yet. I usually don’t feed birds, since we have plenty for them to eat here, even in winter, but it might be fun to get some photos.

Trying to show me compared to the stump.

It’s fun to think about, anyway. I am looking forward to tomorrow, when I can sit in my birding station on dry pillows (because I put them in the storage bin!) and look at the stump. You know, when I read that sentence it occurs to me that it sounds dull as heck. Oh well.

A dull photo of doves roosting before the storm.

I will prove I’m more boring than you’d imagine by telling you the evening’s excitement was when Lee realized the rain on our dumpster made the lights in the house reflect off it. We thought it was mysterious lights in the empty field across the road.

It looked less like a dumpster and more like spooky lights in person.

I also heard a turkey in the woods. Now that was exciting. Connie didn’t gobble back at it, though.

I Like Naps

It’s a good thing I like naps, since I’m very good at falling asleep at this point in my life. I had a very nice nap on the porch this afternoon with the sun keeping me warm and a breeze to keep me from being too warm. Other than waking myself up snoring from being in an awkward position, it was great.

And the good news is that I still had time for horse activities before sunset.

I did have a pretty busy morning after a leisurely birding hour and a little walk. Lots of bluebirds were out competing for grasshoppers, which is always a joy to watch.

I can’t say my morning project tired me out, because after Chris did the hard work of pounding the hanger into the ground, putting up this cool solar birdbath was very easy. And the best part is the bubbler is quiet and doesn’t interfere with bird listening. I hope birds use it. This evening the sparrows were eyeing it.

It turns off at night and when the water runs low.

I spent the rest of the morning doing volunteer work at the Wildscape and bird sanctuary projects. The Master Naturalist volunteers I have done a great job clearing out the space so new plants can go in.

I enjoyed the sights, including a shy kitty and a chicken who laid an egg right in front of me.

I had a great time at the bird sanctuary, where there were at least 20 species out and about. Just the chickadees and titmice were at the feeder, but I saw and heard many more.

After chatting with others at the benches, I went to lunch with the group and had a very good time. I’m glad a was brave enough to do a group thing.

Jackie pretending to investigate a feeder while Debi looks on.

All the mice were out of the chicken feed box, so I can clean it out tomorrow. I guess I’ll need another nap then! Less rodent worry meant tonight’s sunset walk was calmer and I could enjoy listening to the Great Horned Owl and friends for a while. All is well.