Six Types of Herons!

This morning Skip and I headed to the convention centre to see what was there today. There was a stiff north wind and although it was sunny, it was a bit cooler and almost high tide. In one spot, we saw 6 types of herons within yards of each other: great egret, snowy egret, great blue heron, little blue heron, tricoloured heron and a black-crowned night heron. They were all sunning themselves in the lee of the wind and were joined by several red slider turtles, a grebe, a noisy moorhen and I finally got a good picture of the sora.



It's a little bird that is fairly secretive and has a short upturned tail.






After that, we went to the laundromat to do our laundry and were surprised at how quickly it dried. Then I remembered we didn't have any jeans or long-sleeved shirts this time. We washed them and dried them last time and put them away for the drive home. While Skip guarded our clothes, I got the car gassed up and got a car wash at the touchless wash place.

We had lunch at Coconuts on the island which boasts lunch specials like $1 hamburgers. We had today's special, coconut shrimp with cole slaw and I had the margarita special. Since we were having lunch late my stomach was very empty and the margarita went right to my knees. I got blasted on just one! I haven't been that drunk in years! Skip had to drive home (he had just had a diet Coke at lunch) and I immediately crashed on the sofa for an hour or so. Good grief - one margarita knocked me on my keester.

I was going to go out for a walk on the beach before dinner but it was too cold.

Just now we were watching a show on the Travel Channel about the top places in the world to pig out and wouldn't you know, the Number 1 World's Best Place to Pig Out was Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston, MO where Skip and I had broken bread on our way down here a couple of weeks ago. Isn't that always the way? We go somewhere for a visit or a holiday and next thing we know we see some show on TV about it or hear about someone who's also been there or there's a big article in the paper about it. Cool.

Catching Up

My sister, Valerie, has been with us for a few days so I haven't had time to post and entry and yesterday - all day - we were without Internet.

On Saturday, we met my sister, my nephew and his wife for breakfast in Brownsville. After breakfast we headed back to SPI. We ate lunch at the condo and then after the requisite naps we headed out to the Convention Centre and World Birding Centre to see what birds were there. Valerie got some good pictures with her camera that has a 12X zoom.

We saw lots of species including:
the long-billed curlew,













several herons (this one's a tricoloured heron),













sanderlings,













black skimmers (the black bird with the white neck and big, orange and black beak),














and white ibis.













I made pork chops for dinner and we had a quiet night at home.

Sunday we headed over to the resaca at the university to see what was there. The University of Texas at Brownsville/Southmost College of Texas has a very pretty campus.
































The resaca (oxbow lake) is right in the middle with a bridge over it from one building to another part of the campus. Here is the bridge from which we birdwatched.














Here's the other side of the bridge.













We saw a kiskadee, the anhingas,









































ducks and Fred got to see the green kingfisher.

Back on the island, Valerie treated us for dinner at Jessie's - the best Mexican food on the island.

Monday, Skip and I went for a walk on the beach for an hour. It wasn't too windy and was nice and warm and sunny. After lunch Skip and I went out to do some errands at the post office and the IGA. On the way by a wooded area where birds are known to frequent, we saw about 20 birders there - where no one had been when we were there the other day. Evidently on Sunday a white-crested elaenia had been spotted. The elaenia is a Peruvian bird that for some reason was WAY out of his territory. We spoke to someone who had seen him the day before and he had some fabulous photos of the bird. He heard that someone had driven 18 hours to see the bird and another fellow had come from Austin (7 hours away) to see it. I'm learning that when birders hear of an unusual sighting, it causes a lot of excitement. Back at the condo, Valerie and I went for a walk on the beach. I made a nice chicken dinner with beans and corn. After dinner I was overcome with sleepiness so I went to bed early. I slept through until 8 this morning.

Today, Skip and I went birdwatching at the convention centre while Valerie packed. We saw a sora and a black-crowned night heron as well as the usual dunlins, dowitchers, 40 or so skimmers and a forster's tern. After lunch at Dorado's we headed to the airport to drop Valerie off. It is a cute little airport with free parking (yay!) and two gates. We then headed westward to the Mercedes Premium Outlet Mall. I went nuts at Liz Claiborne and bought 4 summer tops and another one at VanHeusen that was deeply discounted. I was annoyed that the salesperson carried on a telephone conversation during the transaction of the person ahead of me and during my transaction. She did not speak to us at all. It was looking overcast so Skip and I began our trip back to SPI avoiding the expressway. We had dinner at the Lost Galleon Restaurant. Our seniors portions were more than generous and the red beans were DElicious. The couple at the next table recommended them and handed us the recipe on their way out. It's very simple - pinto beans, onions, hickory-smoked bacon, salt and pepper to taste. We'll be making a batch of those babies when we get home.

Back to Atascosa

Today Skip went to a golf driving range to finely hone his skills since the big layoff all winter. It was a beautiful sunny day in the low 70sF. After that we had lunch at Taquería El Zarape in Harlingen. I had three tacos al trompo and Skip had fajitas in a big flour tortilla. We both had charro beans. After that we headed back to Atascosa to see what we could see. There was much less wind today so the laguna was very calm.

We spotted several new (for us this trip) birds: the northern shoveler (which looks like a big mallard), whimbrels, willets, a great kiskadee, and what we think is a long-billed curlew. Skip saw a buff-bellied hummingbird.

We also spotted the loggerhead shrike,


















the long-billed thrasher,












the crested caracara,















and a (beep, beep) roadrunner.














I also saw another interesting sign:














And if that isn't enough excitement for one day, I cast on the Diamond Blossom Scarf from Iris Schreier's 'Modular Knits' using the Sean Sheep armytage yarn from WalMart.

Just Pull Up to the Prickly Pear

We've been doing a lot of birding these past couple of days. Yesterday we went back to the Convention Centre where I got photos of the roseate spoonbills from afar.














At the Convention Centre there is a little building with a cool alligator windvane.


















There are really nice walkways over the marshy area and some interesting and useful warning signs.


































After lunch and a nap, we headed over to the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge north of Port Isabel and on the west side of Laguna Madre. At the Visitors Centre there were a couple of viewing places. At one, we saw 8 male cardinals and a few females and several Green Jays.














We took the 15 mile circular route that took us over to the Laguna Madre.

We spotted several osprey, a northern harrier, a Harris' hawk, Skip thinks he saw a rare aplomado falcon, a killdeer, white-tipped doves, a ringed kingfisher, a golden-fronted woodpecker, several green jays, a long-gilled thrasher and a yellow warbler.

Today, we went over to the Sabal Palm Audubon Centre in the south end of Brownsville right on the banks of the Rio Grande. There are a lot of prickly pear cacti in the area and when Skip was parking the car I just told him to pull up until he hit the prickly pear. It sounded funny at the time - sigh.

Here we were within spitting distance of Mexico - just across the Rio Bravo (what the Mexicans call the Rio Grande). I was annoyed that I forgot my camera today. Argh!!

This area of 557 acres is the last representation of what once lined the banks of the Rio Grande for about 100 miles. There are many species of birds and plants where this is their northernmost extent of their range. We spotted a blue-winged teal, an American kestral, the chachalaca, a killdeer, several white-tipped doves, a ringed kingfisher, a Couch's kingbird and a black-crested titmouse .

After lunch of delicious fajitas, we headed to the University of Texas as Brownsville/Texas Southmost College. There is an oxbow lake with a bridge across it in the middle of the campus (free parking!!!) which is an excellent place to spot birds.

The highlight for me was seeing anhingas with their fanned-out wings. There were dozens of them. I also spotted a green kingfisher but unfortunately, Skip couldn't see it. Other species we spotted at UTB/TSC were: many egrets (snowy and great) tricolour and great blue herons, moorhens, least grebes, neotropic and double-crested cormorants, Skip saw a great kiskadee.

Tomorrow we're heading to Harlingen to a driving range and then to another birding place.

Havin' a Heatwave....

We have been having record high temperatures for this area - 28C and over 30C in the 'Upper Valley' farther inland from where we are. The temperature plummets to 20C at night - nice for sleeping with the windows open.

I conked out early last night and had a really good sleep. I think the 5 days of driving has finally caught up to me. Skip went for a long walk on the beach while I was starting to move around this morning and get ready for the day.

Today we did a mammoth laundry at Kwik Wash then went for 'lonche' at Costa del Mar. I had a delicious burger and Skip had the fried fish and shrimp special. We may go back for their "All You Care to Eat" fish special some evening.

Skip dropped me off at the pedicure place and went shopping. I had a nice chat with LaVina, the proprietor of the shop. She also retired last June from a 30 year teaching career as a teacher librarian in a middle school in Los Fresnos, TX , about 1/2 hour drive from SPI. She is very happy with her new career in the beauty industry. Skip and I then went shopping (again) for essentials and some souvenir shirts.

Tonight after dinner we'll watch a couple of episodes of the 'Weeds' first season DVD and see what else is on TV.

My sister, Valerie, is coming for a few days on Saturday. Right now she's visiting her son, Jimmy, and his family in Tampico. They're driving up to Brownsville on Thursday and we'll meet them on Saturday for breakfast and then Valerie will come with us for 4 days. Then she's heading to Houston to visit a friend for a few days before returning to the chilly north.

Birding

This morning Skip and I had a mammoth grocery shopping session at the WalMart Supercentre in Port Isabel. The only things I couldn't find were breadcrumbs and a smallish (under 8) package of chicken quarters (thighs and legs). I picked them up at the IGA this afternoon. I've made a pedicure appointment for Monday and went to the car wash. We haven't seen any automatic car washes so I had to do the coin operated spray one. I didn't do a very good job but I did get most of the nasty-looking grime off. Most of the grime is from when the car was undercoated a few weeks ago.

After Skip got up from his nap (I was snoozing a bit on the couch, too) we went over to the South Padre Island Convention Centre where there is a World Birding Centre.













Skip got me interested in his passion - birdwatching. The first time I really birdwatched away from home was when we went to Costa Rica back in March of 2003. And now I'm in South Padre Island where people come from all over the world to birdwatch. It's kind of like learning to drive a car in a Porsche.

Today in the span of a half hour, we saw 15 species of birds. The highlight was a group of six roseate spoonbills. Unfortunately, they were quite far away and my camera wasn't working very well at that precise moment. However I did see these:






Snowy egret















Moorhen
















Brown pelican













Tricolour heron










We also spotted a pied-bill grebe, a purple gallinule, great egrets, reddish egrets, great blue herons, white ibis, mottled ducks, lesser yellowlegs, and three types of gulls.

Let the Fun Begin

Here are the pictures I meant to post yesterday. They are of our first impressions of the area:

This is the approach to the lighthouse in Port Isabel - where the bridge across Laguna Madre to South Padre Island begins (through our dirty windshield).













And a closer shot.













This is the view as we begin to cross the bridge to SPI. The bridge is about 3.5 km long.













The view of the southern part of the island from the bridge:













And looking northward from the bridge:













And a blurry shot just as we got off the Queen Isabella Bridge:













Today we headed over to McAllen, TX to see if we could find out anything about a birding trip into Mexico. We saw their lovely convention centre but there wasn't much information to be had about the birding trip. As I was not used to wearing my sandals, I went over on my left foot and incurred a minor sprain of my foot between the ankle and the toes. Ouch! It didn't really start to swell until later. We did pick up a bunch of information about various wildlife events and locations where we could go birding ourselves. We ate lunch at a Mexican food place in San Juan, TX just east of McAllen. We then drove over to South Padre Island to get the key for and get into our condo. By this time, my foot had started to swell and I belabouredly limped up the three flights of stairs to our unit. I immediately put ice on my foot (the previous tenants had left ice in the freezer thank goodness) and elevated. Poor Skip did all the traipsing up the stairs with our stuff from the car. Every time he came into the condo, he had more information about one or another of the tenants in the other five units.

The icing really helped (and the ibuprophen) and the foot feels a lot better already. I'll just take it easy these next few days. I am now wearing more sensible Teva (ugly) sandals with much better support. It feels good to get the breeze between my toes.

The high today was 19C - it's going up to the 30s by Sunday. Yessss!

Oh yeah, the condo turned out to be even nicer than I could have imagined.

The dining area:

















The living room:





























and the kitchen:





There's even a dishwasher.

I think we're really going to like it here.