Thursday 28 March 2013

Aransas to New Orleans - Feb. 25 to March 1

Feb 25
We got up early at our ocean-side campground near the Aransas Wildlife Refuge. Emma worked on her Red Fox grants and I went for an early morning birding walk around the Goose Island Campground.

Inca Dove

Typically, you do not see the red primary feathers on an Inca Dove until they fly. This bird had just hopped out of the birdbath and was readjusting its feathers.


15] Fox Squirrel


At noon, we headed northeast along highway 35 toward Galveston.  At Bay City, we stopped for lunch at the local park. There were some resident domestic and interesting exotic waterfowl in the park pond. Suddenly, a couple of black vultures dropped down to the pond for a drink.


Black Vulture


Great Egret

As we moves eastward the terrain became bushier with tall grass and trees. When we approached the south end of Galveston Island, the land became very low-lying and flat. Once we were on the island,  we were surprised to see all of the houses were up on 12-foot pilings.



There was no high ground for dozens of miles and any small rise in sea water would flood the entire marshy plain. We stopped for the night at Jamaica Bay and were comforted by the fact that this was not major storm season. Just after dusk hundreds of  188) Black-bellied Whistling Ducks flew into the adjacent marsh to roost for the night. I grabbed my camera but it was too dark to get pictures of the ducks. However, it was just right for a moon shot.



 February 26
Our first stop was the nearby Galveston Island State Park.We saw the usually seaside birds on the beach and in the marsh. I was hoping to see a Seaside Sparrow but no luck on this day.


 Eastern Meadowlark


We crossed over a couple of tall bridges as we headed to Galveston. The bridges are unusually high so that the tanker traffic can sail underneath. At the high point of the bridge, you get a great view of the surrounding flat marsh lands. There was lots of tank traffic sailing up and down the intracoastal waterway.

Galveston has a long boardwalk right beside the highway and beach. Unfortunately, the day was cool and breezy as we had left the warm Brownsville weather behind.

Galveston Beach


A free ferry carried us from Galveston Island to Port Bolivar. The ferry crossing attracts lots of gulls which feed on the fish that are disturbed by the wash from the ferry.







Laughing Gull
 
We drove for miles through low-lying marsh land and stopped for the night at the aptly named town of "High Island". This little patch of land rises up about 20 or 30 feet above the surrounding marsh. That difference is enough for trees to grow. It is literally a small island in a swamp of reeds.

This location is world famous as a migratory trap for birds. During the spring migration, birds fly across the Gulf of Mexico non-stop. Once they leave the Yucatan peninsula it's fly or die until they reach the trees of High Island. If they encounter a headwind, many drown and the survivors "fall out" in a stupor as soon as they reach land.

In six weeks, the northward migration will begin and High Island will be covered with birds. Unfortunately today is late February and there were few birds. However, there will be lots to eat when they get here as the town was swarming with mosquitoes. We discovered that we have some minute holes in our RV slide-outs. Emma and I could not find the holes but the mosquitoes did. They came at us in waves. Emma was wielding our fly swatter with a passion and clubbing legions of attackers with every swing.  Sona and I took a duck and cover approach to avoid this free wheeling battle.

March 27
We arrived at Anahuac Wildlife Reserve at mid-morning. At the visitors' centre, I bought the perfect t-shirt for Emma. It's royal blue with life-sized pictures of five different herons and egrets standing on a log. (Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Black-crowned Night Heron, Tri-coloured Heron, Green Heron and a Red-eared Slider).

We did a short walk around the visitors' centre and saw an 189) Ash-throated Flycatcher. The reserve has an extensive system of dikes and we took the six-mile auto tour through the marsh. I drove slowly along the dike photographing from the RV.

 Roseate Spoonbills


Great Egret

Emma decided she wanted to walk the dog and exercise instead of sitting in the RV.


Now we had a problem because our dog just flops down and won't move from the RV unless all three of us go for a walk together. Keep the pack together is her motto.

Solution! I would drive ahead in the RV and bird watch. As we were on a dike surrounded by water on all sides, Sona would see the RV in front of her. Emma would be able to walk behind the RV as Sona would want to catch up.


I drove ahead bird-watching and rather lost track of the time and distance. Looking through my rear-view mirror, I saw that Emma and Sona were about a mile behind and jogging at a good pace to catch up.

Have you ever seen an athletic performance that takes your breath away? I had one of those moments.

Still looking through my rear-view I realized that they were not jogging. Emma was running full-tilt like a Heisman trophy-winner on a breakaway. She was deking imaginary tacklers as she sprinted along the top of the dike. My jaw dropped open as I realized she was out-running the dog! Sona was game enough but clearly out-classed by Emma's superlative effort.

Emma kept coming at a sprint for the full mile. In the finishing stretch, she looked like Secretariat at the Belmont. The dog was a good 16 furlongs back. Emma hit the RV door at a dead run and leapt inside followed quickly by the dog.

"Way to go, Honey! You out-ran the dog", I said in admiration.

Huff, puff, gasp .... Alligators!!! gasped Emma.

Sure enough and big suckers at that!


 Instead of looking 50 yards into the marsh for birds, I looked along the gently sloping sides of the dike. This 12- footer and his compatriots were sunning themselves inches from the top of the dike.

 It all worked out. I saw lots of birds. Emma got her aerobic exercise and Sona had a great run. They were both happy to sit quietly in the RV for the rest of the birding auto tour.
190) Black Duck

We drove to Port Arthur then south to the coast and Sea Rim State Park. As we drove up there was some storm damage to the boardwalk that was still being repaired. The pack went for a nice walk along the beach and saw some new birds.




191) Piping Plover


 Snowy Plover
 Piping and Snowy Plovers are quite similar particularly in winter but their  legs are different colours.

 192) Marbled Godwit with several American Avocets

193) Western Sandpiper in Winter Plumage


 Two tall bridges later and we were in Louisiana. The terrain became even wilder and marshier.




Brown Pelican

The few houses sprinkled around were all high-up on stilts, even the churches.


We took another free ferry ride to get to Cameron and thankfully were able to get some gas. The marshy, watery landscape really felt like Cajun country.

Louisiana State Flag


We decided to turn inland and spent the night at an RV Park in Lake Charles. I was expecting a small town but Lake Charles is a good sized city. We had some late night excitement finding our way through traffic to our campsite.

February 28
Most of the trees were bare as we drove east along the I10. It was definitely winter in Louisiana.

For dozens of miles, the highway was raised up 20 feet above the ground. Actually the ground was covered by several feet of water. It was a classic forest swamp with tall trees rising out of the still, murky water.



We drove through Lafayette and on toward Baton Rouge. I wanted to press on to New Orleans but Emma had had enough of the crazy bumper to bumper 70 mph traffic on the I10. We stopped just west of Baton Rouge by the banks of the Mississippi River.

 March 1
The morning was cold but the sun was warm. Spring is just around the corner here.
On our morning walk around the campground we saw: 194) Barn Swallow, 195) Brown Thrasher and

196) Cedar Waxwings.

 Eastern Bluebird

As we drove toward New Orleans I took a turn-off into the middle of a swamp forest to see what it was like. We were set straight by the locals very quickly.



Our RV site was in New Orleans and getting there was challenging. At times on the freeway, it was dead stopped and bumper to bumper. That is actually good news as Emma can relax momentarily and recover from the driving insanity that is manifested on big city freeways. There are not many cities we want to see but New Orleans is one of them.

Emma on the Banks of the Mississippi River in New Orleans.

Saturday 16 March 2013

Port Isabel to Aransas - February 19 to 24

Feb 19
We left Port Isabel and took the long bridge over Laguna Madre to Padre Island. This island is essentially a huge sandbar which is over 100 miles long and a mile wide. Most of the island is reserved for wildlife but the south end is heavily built up with many large tourist hotels.The highest point on the island is maybe 30 feet above the high tide line so this is not the place to be if there is a serious storm or tsunami.

Among the large hotels is the second best birding site in the lower Rio Grande Valley. South Padre Birding Centre is on the Laguna Madre side of the island and has an extensive, elevated boardwalk that takes you over the marsh.

All of the large and small wading birds are here. The island acts as a natural barrier and restricts water flow from the Gulf of Mexico into the Lagoon. This results in higher salt concentrations in the lagoon and a thriving microbe ecosystem. Ducks and wading birds flock to this energy-rich feeding area.

We saw all of the herons and egrets that you can see in southern Texas, and got good photos of most of them.

Great Blue Heron


Little Blue Heron


Tri-coloured Heron


Great Egret



Snowy Egret


Reddish Egret


Long-billed Curlew

 
White Ibis

167) White-faced Ibis

There were lots of other interesting birds at this sanctuary including large numbers of Redheads and other aquatic birds.


Redhead
 
Common Moorhen

 In the afternoon, we went to the beach on the Gulf of Mexico side of Padre Island.

Beach at South Padre Island

A Day at the Beach



Sona was experiencing ocean surf for the first time. It was not her cup of tea.

Feb 19 - 20
We drove to the Palo Alto National Historic site. This was the location of the first battle between the USA and Mexico at the start of the Mexican American War of 1846 to 48. We had a nice walk around the old battlefield and saw 168) Eastern Meadowlarks.

The Mexicans expected the Americans to attack and had a good game plan if that had happened. Instead, the Americans went into a defensive stance and used their superior canons to devastate the larger Mexican force. Battlefields leave me feeling sad.

 
Palo Alto National Historic Site

We drove north toward Kingville. As we drove through the Kenedy Ranch, we saw thousands of 100-foot windmills with their blades whipping around. These windmills are recent additions.  This area is like a funnel for migratory birds flying between South and North America and these windmills are a killing field for birds.

At Altamont Pass in California, more than 10,000 migratory birds each year have been killed by the windmills there. This includes more than one thousand raptors and eight golden eagles annually at this site alone. The Kenedy site is right at the bottleneck of two migratory flyways.

Have you wondered why you don't see birds the way you did as a child? What will your grandchildren get to see? We hammer the oil industry for violating the migratory bird act when they kill migratory birds in their slag ponds. Yet, Canada and the USA are giving the wind turbine industry a free pass to kill hundreds of thousands of migratory birds annually.

Wind power is not clean energy at all. It is a young industry that is poorly thought through and largely unregulated. Their language includes phrases like "Our bird kill is average for our industry". I wonder what the DDT industry said about the side effects of their product as they were busy wiping out Peregrine Falcons and other birds at the top of the food chain?  

We have the migratory bird act for songbirds and hawks and it should be enforced. Under the act you pay a fine and risk jail time for killing migratory song birds and hawks.  We should enforce the law for the wind industry not just the oil industry.

The Passenger Pigeon is now extinct. It migrated in huge flocks numbering in the millions. Humans lined up along its migratory route and gunned them down by the hundreds of thousands each year. Once the tellegraph was perfected, hunters used it to alert their neighbors so they would be ready for the slaughter.
Is placing wind turbines in the middle of migratory bird routes really any different?


We turned east at Riviera to arrive on the seashore by Coya Del Grullo Bay.
We spent  two nights at aptly named Sea Wind RV Park.




169) Caspian Tern - The two red-billed Caspian Terns are in the foreground with an orange billed Royal Tern in the background.

170) Brown-headed Cowbird

Feb 21
As we approach Corpus Christi, the farmers had tilled every square foot of ground. There were no hedge rows or brush cover of any kind for wildlife. Wind was blowing hard and taking away the top soil. The sky was grey with dust. We drove through the intense Corpus Christi traffic and onto the northern end of South Padre Island. We spent the afternoon at South Padre National Seashore.

Long stretches of South Padre Island are a nature preserve which is essential for sea turtles to lay their eggs and for migratory birds to rest when they fly across the Gulf of Mexico. It's nice to see people showing foresight rather than the short-sighted unregulated greed of the past few days.

South Padre National Seashore - Visitors Centre


South Padre National Seashore




Along the seashore we saw 171) Black Skimmers;

172) Black-bellied Plover


173) Sanderling


174) Ruddy Turnstone

We camped for the evening along the beach by the Gulf of Mexico.

February 22
I went on a guided bird tour through the South Padre Island National Seashore. It was a cool and windy day but it's always fun to go birding with a guide that knows the area. We saw 40 different species including :

175) Forster's Tern

176) White-tailed Hawk

Going north along South Padre Island we crossed to Mustang Island and stopped at Packers Channel. We saw:

177) Red-breasted Mergansers

178) Bufflehead

We drove along Mustang Island to Port Aransas and took a free ferry back to the mainland. Many Laughing Gulls followed the ferry as well as a few 179) Bonaparte Gulls.

We drove through Rockport to our campsight at Goose Island. We had a campsight right on the beach and our neighbors were fishing within feet of our RV.


180) Common Loon


February 23
I joined the morning birding tour through the Goose Island Campground. We saw 16 different birds including a 181) Buff-bellied Hummingbird.

In the afternoon, we drove to a 1,000-year-old Live Oak tree.It had a circumfrence of 35 feet at the base and was surrounded by a grove of its offspring.

Live Oak - Big Tree

 On the way back to our campground, we saw three whooping cranes. They were a good way off but they are big birds and hard to miss.

182) Whooping Crane



In a nearby field, we saw the aptly named Cattle Egret. They typically follow along behind cattle eating the bugs that are disturbed. Initially an African bird, it has adapted to cattle ranches in the southern states.

183) Cattle Egret



Cooper's Hawk


We drove into Fulton to experience the atmosphere of a gulf-coast fishing village. As the sun set, we had dinner on an outdoor patio overlooking the harbour.

Fulton Harbour






Sunset view of Fulton Harbour from our restaurant table.


February 24
We drove back to Fulton for an afternoon boat cruise and a closer look at the Whooping cranes in Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.

Whooping Crane Boat Cruise Aboard The Skimmer

We saw 30 different bird species on the tour including: 184) Horned Lark,

185) Western Sandpiper


Whooping Crane



Here are two Double-crested Cormorants and a Neotropic Cormorant on the right. Note the smaller size of the Neotropic Cormorant and the larger, yellow bill of the double-crested Cormorants.  

Neotropic Cormorant - Close Up

 
White Pelican


186) American Oystercatcher

187) Belted Kingfisher


  The whooping cranes were not out in the marsh as they usually are. Their preferred food is the blue crab but this food source is now scarce. Blue crab need more fresh water coming into the salt marsh to breed effectively. The recent drought and increased human consumption of fresh water has had a ripple effect.

Fewer blue crab means the whooping crane population starves or finds alternate and riskier food sources. Whooping Cranes are relatively safe out in the middle of the marsh but several were back against the neighboring oak forest. They can substitute the less nutritious acorns for blue crabs. However, this takes them out of the marsh and into bobcat and coyote territory. This year there were very few young Whooping Cranes with their parents. We saw one young crane.  Ripple effect!