Goose Island – 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!