January 2002 |
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By this time we are well into what the locals call "Life Island Style" - it's really tough! Lazy days with no rush about anything and temperatures in the 60's & 70's mainly, although the few days over the New Year period were much cooler. In fact we awoke one morning to what looked suspiciously like frost? on the truck but the sun was shining and it soon reached 60 degrees again. We had a very quiet New Years eve/day. We had thought of visiting Corpus Christi for the New Years eve celebrations but the weather forecast was not good and as it happened we would have been soaked as it rained.
Tennis - Our tennis activity was brought to an abrupt halt in the first week of January, as the local authority decided to upgrade the existing courts and lay 3 new courts. How inconsiderate of them? Do they think it's winter or something? We will just have to get our exercise in other ways. Linda is still enjoying cycling along the beach and around the island. One day she decided to see how far along the beach she could cycle. Twelve miles later she reached Mustang Island State Park where sand dunes made for the turnaround point. It was a couple of days later after we recorded the milage from our RV park to that state park that she realised just how far she had ridden.
Aransas National Wildlife Refuge - Situated about 40 miles east of Port Aransas the refuge is the winter home of the endangered (only about 300 in the world) Whooping Crane. The Whooping Crane is 5 foot tall and has a wing span of 7 1/2 feet making it North America's largest bird.
These magnificent birds arrive from Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada (a mere 2,600 mile flight in flocks of 10 or less) between late October and mid-November. The refuge offers them protection and more importantly their favorite food - blue crabs, clams, etc. which are abundant here. The Cranes mate for life and each pair have their own few acres of territory. Their presence has generated a cottage industry in boat tours and festivals etc.
We were fortunate to see a nesting pair of cranes on the refuge. They were relatively close to a viewing platform and were easily viewed through the binoculars. This saved us some money as we had intended to take one of the boat trips. There were lots of other shore birds visible around the refuge but the highlight of our day after the Whooping Cranes was our first sighting of a Bobcat. He had just crossed the road with some prey and settled down under a bush to feed but being aware of our presence he delayed his meal. They are quite striking animals particularly the markings about the face and they are of course one of the main dangers to the Whooping Cranes.
Holiday - Feeling we needed a break from this hectic "Island Life" we decided to take a trip to the Rio Grande Valley/South Padre Island area where we spent a month last year.
We visited the Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge, which lies alongside the famous Rio Grande River, and added
Altamira Oriole (very colourful), Green Kingfisher and Ash Throated Fly Catcher to our list. The refuge was suffering from a severe lack of rain and most of the birds were to be found around one of the few lakes that still had water. The upside of this was that birds such as the Great Kiskadee (handsome fellow), which were dispersed throughout the refuge last year, were more easily spotted as all of them were around the water. We spent an enthralling few minutes watching
a Red Shouldered Hawk teaching it's offspring to hunt. As we approached the parent flew off leaving the youngster in the tree squawking. At one point it flew down from it's perch and appeared to wish to land on Wullie's head, but decided a neighbouring tree was a better alternative.
January is a good time to visit
South Padre Island as the motels are desperate for custom and are practically giving their rooms away.
Walked along the beach in the afternoon stopping for a light lunch and a beer at a Beach Bar. Visited the birding area where a boardwalk extends over the wetlands to the channel between the mainland and the island. We encountered a Tri-coloured Heron that seemed to enjoy having his picture taken, as he kept perching on the rail posing for everyone. The popular birding lore of South Padre Island says that a Peregrine Falcon perches on the water tower visible from the boardwalk. Last year one person was adamant that the bird perched on the water tower was a Peregrine Falcon but we didn't think it looked like one. He was insistent, we suspect because he was told the story so ergo any bird of prey atop the water tower must be a Peregrine. This year a couple chatting with Wullie, as we all followed the progress of a Clapper Rail through the reeds, asked if we had noticed the Peregrine Falcon on the water tower? After studying the bird through our binoculars we decided it probably was but we were not 100% certain so we would not mark it off in our book. We related the story of the year before and all had a good laugh before going in opposite directions. What a surprise when our fellow birders of 20 minutes before offered us a look through their birding scope, which they had returned to their car to get. Thanks to their kindness the Peregrine Falcon is well and truly added to our list.
When we visited South Padre Island last year I managed to keep Linda out of the Padre Island Brewpub. This year I succumbed to her pleading and we enjoyed a jug of their excellent Pale Ale to compliment a delicious pizza for our evening meal.
On our return journey we visited Laguna Atascosa NWR. This too was suffering from drought conditions and the drive through the refuge to the waterfront was closed for improvements. These two factors combined made for a disappointing visit whereas last year numerous varieties of birds were abundant.
King Ranch Birding Tour - A visit to King ranch makes you really feel that you are in Texas! The ranch was founded in 1853 and totaled over a million acres of land. Today it has shrunk to a mere 825,000 acres - larger than the state of Rhode Island. King Ranch developed their own unique "Santa Gertrudis" breed of cattle. At one time they had property in South America & Africa to make this an international breed. Modern eating habits sadly require that beef should be very lean with hardly any fat? As a result the Santa Gertrudis herds have been crossed with other breeds to produce what health conscious consumers desire. King Ranch has many other strings to their bow including producing the first American Quarter horse and being the biggest Citrus farmers in Florida. It is possible to take a historical tour of the ranch which includes visits to the main house. Their are no permanent residents of the grand ranch house but the many heirs of the founders have set it up as a family hotel for vacation & business purposes.
Our bird watching tour started at 8.30 a.m. and was to last for 4 hours, so as you can guess we would only visit a small part of the ranch. Our party consisted of 6 people, 2 from Colorado and 2 from Iowa and a very knowledgeable guide. During our 4 hour tour we added 12 birds to our list, with the most exciting for us being the very brightly coloured Vermilion Flycatcher and the Great Horned Owl. This Owl is very large and quite fierce looking but it was still a surprise to learn that it's prey includes Great Blue Herons & Ospreys as well as other Owls & Hawks. This was a most enjoyable day and the 4 hours just flew by. All day birding tours start at King Ranch in April when even more species of birds are visible.
Padre Island National Seashore & St Jo Island - Linda has taken up the free hobby of collecting "Sand Dollars" (shell of a sea urchin) which can be found on the beaches around here. Whereas the shells are free the paint, glue, glitter etc. for decorating them is not, but she is having fun!
We drove about 3 miles along the beach of the National Seashore and then walked a further 4 picking up shells and watching the local birds on this completely unspoiled & quiet stretch of beach. The sun was shining, the surf was gentle, we were content, it was all quite idyllic and best of all it wasn't going to end in a weeks time with a flight back to the rat race! Oh how lucky we are.
St. Jo is a small uninhabited island across the Corpus Christi ship channel from Port Aransas. A regular ferry service conveys foot passengers, mainly fishermen & beachcombers like us, across the channel. Most days you will see some Dolphins and every day lots of Pelicans, Cormorants, Herons etc. during the crossing. We crossed on the 9 a.m. ferry intending to return on the 4.10 p.m. but after walking for 3 hours along the beach without finding many Sand Dollars we stumbled upon a treasure trove of shells. We stopped to have our packed lunch up by the water line and wondered what the bright white objects were scattered throughout the sand. Closer inspection identified them as sun- bleached Sand Dollars just waiting to be picked up. Like kids in a sweetie shop we were oblivious to the time and when we actually returned to normality we realised some time had passed and we were a few miles from the jetty. Despite putting our best foot forward it became apparent we were not going to make the 4.10 ferry it would have to be the 6.10.
This gave us plenty of time to count our catch - more than 500 sand-dollars of varying sizes plus quite a few other large complete shells.
Another warm day with the nice cool breeze, miles and miles of beach with only the two of us, just perfect. The thought did occur to Wullie that the amount of paint, glue & glitter etc. required to decorate 500 Sand Dollars might just put a large dent in this months pension? but it didn't seem right to mention a negative thought on such a lovely day?
Note - Next months page may not be published until near the end of the month. Our hours will be busy travelling and seeing new sights.
NEXT MONTH:
Middle of February we move to Louisiana and prepare for our trip to Wisconsin.
Miles travelled this month: 1,138
Accumulative miles: 67,282
Interesting Hyperlinks:
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