So the first day we're here, I go out reconnoitering for good bird spots and hit upon one with these flamingo-type birds and I'm thinking, "Are we in Texas or Florida?.... Do flamingos come this far west? No one told me we were going to see flamingos here?" So couldn't wait to get back to this spot.
Then days passed, and some rain off and on, and doing some clean-up and fix-up on the RV after our tumultuous trip here, and finally got to the birding spot, and boom - no flamingos - nothing. We trek around and I find out that these aren't flamingos but Roseate Spoonbills and we see them at various spots, but they're about 100 yards away - a LONG way away. I'm bummed.
Then we get a couple of days of rain, and I remember the night we drove into the park here. It was raining cats and dogs, we weren't sure of the layout of the park, we were getting drenched and both of us were pretty cantankerous. Then it cleared up beautifully the next day and that's when I saw those bright pink birds, so after the rainstorm, we trekked back out to the birding location and BOOM!!! There they were.
These are from the ibis family and considered frequent residents of the Gulf and Florida coast regions. The pinker or redder birds are breeding. Click on any of these photos to see them larger. These really are gorgeous birds.
Because of their coloring, they were harvested for their feathers, but now because of protective laws, the populations have come back.
Using their bills, they work through the water by swishing their bills back and forth using smell to find shrimp and other small aquatic life.
For more fun, here's a great video of these birds in action on Walt's great camera.
As if this wasn't fun enough, we trekked over to another location (east of the Aransas Pass where the ships come into the Aransas area to get to Corpus Christi port), with birds of their own. This seems to be where the Brown Pelicans hang out.
This one is the Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce pelican who will sit there and allow you to get really close so you can take lots of photographs. All the while looking at you as if to say, "Did I give you permission to take pictures of me/" or "Are you getting my good side?" Well, Walt got both so I'm sure he's happy!
And I think this is what I love most about Port Aransas is what this picture shows - the Chamber of Commerce Pelican - always available (albeit begrudgingly) for a photo or two, a huge tanker coming into the Aransas Pass into the deepest port in the Gulf of Mexico (Corpus Christi) and just below the surface of the water, being a little shy of the camera is a porpoise who love to play and race the boats in and out of the pass. Walt shot this a little ahead of the porpoise making its appearance!
But no matter, because we caught the porpoises earlier during the day at a different location of the pass. Look just ahead of the tug boat pulling that LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) tanker out of the pass and into the Gulf of Mexico headed to Antwerp, Rotterdam - providing fuel for the world while nature is running amok all around them. Who says commerce and nature can't exist together?!
The Texas Gulf Coast is full of all sorts of waterfowl and migrating birds in their winter home....snowbirds! With the intercoastal waterway that runs around the Atlantic Coast to the Gulf of Mexico Coast so that commerce and recreational travel can be accomplished without having to withstand the wiles of the larger ocean and gulf. What this ICW also provides is amble swamps, ponds, sloughs, and other bodies of salt, fresh and brackish (being both salt and fresh) water sprinkled throughout the ICW. And the Port Aransas area is rife with this sort of coastal waterways and a very happy balance between nature and commerce.
One of the natural phenomenons is a freshwater area that houses most of the wintering whooping crane population in the US. But these cranes also bring a ton like around 360 different coastal and waterfowl to the area. The space is so crowded that for a photographer it's a bonanza of shots.
For the wildlife though, it can get a little crowded, and when a snowy egret and tri-color heron get in each other's way, there can be some squawking and definite territorial discussions going on. These two pranced around for most of the morning with the egret getting the upper hand, and a goodly amount of fishes to gulp down as well.
And of course with a lot of birds, come a lot of varieties of similar species, like snowy egret, great egret, cattle egret, great white heron, great blue heron, tricolor heron, on and on. This one below is a Little Heron in blooming plumage (or rather breeding plumage). No matter, they are all still beautiful birds.
For the last couple of days it's been rainy, and being from a relatively dry climate, I'm not used to all this moisture and humidity! But being on the coast it's really damp down here. Like we humans, the birds love the sun coming out and the birds showed up today!.
These are cute little Stilts that like to poke around in the water. All I can imagine is that there must be lots of food there, cause this is what the birds do most of the time - poke around in the water!
This is a tri-color heron which is very common in this area of the Gulf Coast. It's really a beautiful bird.
Then there came a huge conversation about a fairly non-descript bird if it was a juvenile heron or bittern. I took up the argument for the juvenile heron - black-crowned night heron to be exact.
The confusion was if this was a bittern which has a completely different look
They look alike, but this was definitely a juvenile.
There were so many, that's a whole other post tomorrow!
One of the favorite things for me to watch is the launching of the pelicans. They are the most beautiful flyers and floaters and are excellent fishermen, but to watch them take off is like watching an overloaded plane and knowing that they're never going to make it.....
No matter how big those wings or any amount of lift, those dragging feet are not adding to any lift and offer no help toward wind efficiency.
The feet are still dragging and the lift the bird gets from those big wings just isn't enough....
Once again a large wingspan with a huge range of motion, but those feet are still a huge problem and this bird isn't going to make it, but you gotta give the bird A for the effort at least....
Well, this looks like it might be a little bit better, but those feet are still a problem....
You gotta give these birds praise because they do not give up, and maybe that's the secret to them getting into the air......
Well, look at this, the feet might offer something more than a complete hindrance to the take off.....
And finally, all that flapping finally worked because once these birds are in the air....
These birds look really beautiful in flight.
And his pal is working like crazy to get in the air right below him. Having seen his pal's success. It may take him 4 or 5 flaps to get into the air, but he's somehow going to make it!
We always like to travel someplace south to get away from all the holiday falderol and this has become some exclusive "us" time which I treasure - hopefully Walt does too!!! Because of one thing and another we didn't travel much this year, and we learned a very valuable lesson - the RV is meant to travel and doesn't like it when it doesn't get out on the road.
First, the freezer froze shut from last year, yep, we forgot to turn off the fridge and the humidity (we do have some in Oklahoma), seeped in and it froze that dang freezer shut. So as a public service, I'm here to advise all RV owners out there, be sure and turn off your fridge. This is what happens when you don't!
But that problem solved....see I like to invent these creative little problems so Walt has a purpose in life - now really I don't but let's pretend that's what happened - OK - and let's not tell him! We move onto the next problem, since we're going to be traveling to a relatively populated area, but staying in the unpopulated part, we figured we could do all our grocery shopping really well in the populated part, but let's get on the road.
Outside Ft. Worth we have a full-blown blowout - not a flat, but the dang tire blew. Fortunately being close to Ft. Worth we were able to find a tire store, but Walt, yes the guy who can do anything, got out and has big jacks that will jack up the trailer alongside I-35W and changes the tire. I'm continually amazed at what all this man can do. We pull into a tire store and get a couple of new tires (he doesn't like the look of the spare and believe me, I trust him when he says that). I don't really have any photos of this escapade as I was in the car saying my prayers that no dope was going to run him down as the flat was on the left side (the traffic side) of the trailer. And we had some undivided attention from the upstairs cause, fortunately, nothing happened, other than changing the tire.
We had gotten up at an outrageously hour and started out early from OKC and really being rather smug that we would pull into our spot in the RV park at 3 in the afternoon - we were so on top of things and patting ourselves on the back, when the blowout sort of undid that and took that 3 hours early start all away from us. Instead, we pull into the RV park, in the dark, with a bad map, and raining cats and dogs outside. I'm trying to be positive, and tell him that we have to cross over to Port Aransas on the ferry. Ferry!!!! This RV on a FERRY! I tell Walt this will be an adventure. When we pulled up to get on the ferry, there's another Class A Motorhome, so he's feeling a little better about this. But I'm always up for an adventure, and here's our little video of crossing on the ferry....with the RV....and making it to the other side. WARNING: This is not for kids, as Walt always has a few expletive-deleteds in his conversation, particularly when he's relieved that I'm actually right about the direction we're going, and it is not edited. As the pros would say it's a raw video! At this point, I'm thankful that I know where we are too.
This really doesn't show the ferry or channel we crossed all that well.
Here's a better shot in the daylight and shows what a really great operation this is. There are about 8 ferries during the day, fewer at night, but they manage to get the traffic across very efficiently.
The question comes up then why there's no bridge here and I wondered the same thing. The area had a direct hit of Hurricane Harvey in 2017, so, logically, not everything might not be built back, Corpus Christi (just south of Port Aransas) and Port Aransas were on the SW side of the hurricane more commonly known as the dirty side, as that side gets the brunt of the winds and more specifically the water and flooding. So it's natural to think that not everything has been built back. However, traveling on the ferry in daylight, I began to realize that there's something else going on here.
There are huge tankers that come through the Aransas Pass into Corpus Christi and the 5th largest US port handling mostly oil and agriculture. Obviously, since huge tankers and cargo ships are coming through the Aransas Pass, a bridge over this pass, would be terribly expensive as well as needed to be opened and closed all the time. It's far simpler and easier and simpler to ferry the land transportation across the pass and leave the pass open. We happened upon the ferry at one time a huge tanker was going through and there was hardly any wait at all. It's a remarkably efficient solution to a high-traffic area.
We are ensconced in our RV park finally, and I had picked a location that backed up to a nature preserve (which in the rain and bad map didn't look like that's where we would end up), so we simply pulled into our spot, crocked and hooked up the electricity and water and went to bed. The next morning we would finish hooking up in the light. And right behind us is the nature preserve - I'm thrilled and Walt simply wants to finish hooking up, get everything turned on and we'll have some breakfast and begin to relax.
But wait....there's no gas. A trip to the propane filler-upper and we're set....or so we think. Still no gas, so we start looking at all the places where there might be something haywire and thinking gee if there's a gas leak....ummm....uhhh...hopefully we won't explode! Well, never fear, Walt is here, and after 2 days of searching through everything, Walt finally finds the problem. Apparently, the blowout on I--35 also blew out the gas line close to the tire and into the RV, and Walt being the guy who can do anything, fixes it and voila - we have gas. The first thing we did was bacon and eggs!!!
Finally, everything is fixed, with Walt having landed on his ribs and blew out his knee and did something to his back, so I'm on care duty to make sure he gets back to some sort of comfort. In the meantime, I've started reconnoitering around the island to see what's what. I rode my bike to the Gulf of Mexico (sounds like I went hundreds of miles and makes me think I'm 30 again or something), and took a few photos.
One of the things that I noticed was while I was walking the Gulf of Mexico shore, there were a lot of ships on the horizon. I've seen this before at my cousin's home in Maine, where ships line up to get into port to unload their products and goods and get out. At some of the major ports, there can be a traffic jam, so the ships sit just outside the port ready to come in when the space is available at the port. This was a clear display of the economic power of the port of Corpus Christi and the economic importance of the Aransas Pass.
Here is how the pass fits into the economic scheme for it is through this pass that most of the cargo and tanker ships pass. Port Aransas is on Mustang Island which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). The ICW is an inland waterway from about Boston, MA to Brownsville, TX. This is lined with islands that protect recreational and commercial boats and ships while traveling along the Eastern Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. This makes a very interesting co-existence between the commercial shipping industry and the natural wildlife that is drawn to the inland waterway and islands that make up the barrier for the ICW.
And then there's the wildlife, which is what we're here for. The nature preserve we have backed up to has bird hotspots that have 360+ variety of birds, and this time of year it's the winter home to a large population of birds. The weather is very pleasant - a little cooler at night, but very pleasant during the day. Apparently, the birds are just as happy with the humans as the humans are with the birds, although seagulls are known for their pushy ways, but this one might have thought I might have a fish hanging from me or something.
Yes - this one is going to be a painting I can tell.
And speaking of the fish - the wharf fish market is a bike ride from the RV - I can tell there's lots of fish in my future! I love traveling to new places I've never been to and learning all about the economy and structure of these places. This photos sort of shows how the two seemingly at-odds factions of the area co-exist very well, with the beach tourist visitor and the line of about 14 ships on the horizon waiting to get into port.
Sometimes, just getting up and getting someplace is the hardest part. This has been an unusual year as we haven't traveled as much as we thought we would, and the RV has suffered from it. We've also learned some valuable lessons and the chief one is to get-away, even if it's only for a very short time. We got the RV to travel, and it's meant to travel and if it doesn't, then it can get a little rusty sitting on its hiney! So prep time took a little longer and got us right down to our deadline. But we made it and all working well.
Then on the road, we had a blowout. Now, this wasn't a flat, it was a full-blown blowout! Fortunately, we were just outside Ft. Worth so help wasn't that far away, and Walt being Walt, got out and jacked up the RV (yes he carries heavy-duty jacks) and changed the tire. There are some pretty miraculous things I can do, but to be honest, when Walt takes on these challenges, I'm frankly amazed. The guy is a one-man, do-it-yourselfer, tackle-any-project type guy, and yep, we were on I-35W, side-of-the-road, and he fixed it. Then dropped off at the local tire store and purchased 2 new tires (a new spare and replacement for the old one), and on the road again.
Then get into Port Aransas and it's raining, and not just raining, I mean a good pour. Setting up in the dark, pouring rain, and not knowing where the dickens we were, was a mess but found the owner and he very kindly helped us out. Kudos to Port A RV Resort. Up the next morning, the rain has finally stopped and we straighten up the RV and can do a total hook-up while I run most of our gear from the night before through the dryer.
But we're here!!!
And it's exactly as I had planned. Without the light, I couldn't really see the view we had and thought I had picked a spot that backed up to the nature preserve but wasn't sure after the fiasco of the night before. But the next morning, even though it's still cloudy and wet, brings just what I had planned - a great view of the nature preserve, but even better, when the window is cracked slightly, there's the call of gobs of birds out there. Trekking the next day to get our supplies (we thought we would get in the RV and travel, then get all our supplies once we were in Port A), the road is filled with wildlife on the side of the road - almost as if it were a bird-infested Yellowstone!
There are still some rusty spots we have to iron out, but we will get those handled, and then be sitting pretty in our little home-away-from home!
When I see on photographer's posts what is their favorite location for their photography a lot of them say their own backyard. That's the case with Walt as we have a profusion of activity in the summertime. Me?....I simply sit back and enjoy!
View from the patio.
Walt obviously has a green thumb and has planted a beautiful perennial flower garden in the back with mountain sage, salvia (hard to see behind the sage), rudbeckia, canna and a few sunflowers for good measure in the back.
Unbeknownst to me, this brings out the profusion of bees and butterflies. This year we had a new visitor.
The problem as a bee is if you are bigger than the flower, landing is a very delicate process.
But it's not impossible, particularly when the reward is nectar!
Lots of color from the butterflies - wonder why that is - that butterflies have lots of color - more to ponder while sitting in the garden.
We had a really elegant visitor the other day - a black swallowtail.
But by far the most exotic visitor to our yard was the clearwing hummingbird moth. I tried to get several photos, but it's the video that's so revealing. At first, I thought it was a baby hummingbird, but it had antennae and not a beak but a long tongue that reached in to get the nectar. I did get a great video.
This was mostly Walt's design - I helped with the color, but mostly his work and design
I love the interplay of yellow and purple in the summer with purple being such a cool color.
One of our favorite finds was the Blue Sage which has really spread beautifully
All of these are perennials and will come up again next year, which means we have to do some thinning out this winter. Walt's looking to start a garden in the front yard. Wil keep photographic steps of that!
