Who lives in a city with the name "Bay" that isn't actually near water?

September 26th, 2010

I drove all the way from LANWR to Bay City, currently the longest drive I'd had, at around 5-6 hours. My mission? To find the lost Doug Devos. And I found him, right where I left him 9 months ago. The highlights of this drive both being bird related.

The first was the emergence of a large Kettle of Hawks flying south. A 'kettle' is a term for a flock of hawks traveling together. Hawks migrate mainly by 'thermaling' which means to ride the thermal updrafts, spiraling up high in the sky, then using the height to glide as far as possible before riding the next updraft. This is much more effective than you may think, as this particular kettle of over 100 hawks disappeared within minutes. I believe they were Broad-winged Hawks with a 10 or 20 Mississippi Kites mixed in with them. Now for anyone that's paying attention, you'll notice a week ago on Facebook I called them Zone-tailed Hawks. But after hitting the books again, I think it makes much more sense for them to be Broad-winged. Unfortunately, hawks are not my area of expertise, so I can't be right all the time.


A second highlight was a field full of thousands of Cattle Egrets. As I am traveling on the tail end of fall migration, these egrets might have just landed in Texas. They call Texas home in the winter. Maybe, maybe not. Fun fact, Cattle Egrets did not call the Americas home till recently. They weren't introduced, they just found their way here in the late 19th century.

I arrived at Doug's late in the day, and the night consisted of mainly grilling and talking. Unfortunately, this was a short visit and I had to leave early the next morning.


I leave you with one last picture. Doug's cat, Tabitha, Queen of the Sea Cows.

A walk on the wildside

September 25th, 2010
On my last day, Jacquie and I decided to hike around the refuge and find what we could. It turned out to be a good day, though we didn't find much. I apologize for the lack of pictures, as I was much more interested in bird watching than clicking that day.

The great thing about this area of Texas is its Avian inhabitants. These include the gorgeous Green Jays, strange Chachalacas (said basically like it's spelled, Cha-Cha-La-Ka), and vibrant Harris's Hawks. Unfortunately I didn't get many photo opportunities with these birds, I linked them to the University of Cornell's page about them so you can check them out.
As follows is a collection of the photos.
A gorgeous Crested Caracara. Sort of like a Mexican Vulture, but obviously much better looking than any common vulture.







Again I apologize, as these pictures do not accurately depict Laguna Atascosa at all. But as these are the pictures I took, it will have to do for now. Until I go back :)

Movin on down, to the southside.

September 23-24th, 2010
So I made it to Laguna Atascosa NWR. Why you ask? Where is this you ask? It is a national wildlife refuge located at the southern tip of Texas, between Harlingen and South Padre island.

It's main claim to fame is it's resident, the rare (atleast in the States) Ocelot. Which is a small feline located mainly in Mexico and South America. It declined due to loss of habitat, roads, and ranchers killing them, pushing it almost entirely out of the U.S. My friend, Jacquie, just started as an intern working on the Ocelot project down at LANWR. I went down to visit her and check out the refuge.
For more information you can check its wiki page.

There are two important points to know about this visit:
1. With the tropical storm hitting right in this area, and the thick vegetation added to an already marshy area, this created the worst infestation of mosquitoes I have yet been witness too.
2. Despite #1, fell in love with this area

Almost immediately as I arrived at the refuge, I had to get field ready, as I was joining Jacquie to night track Ocelots. This turned into quite an interesting night as we walked around surrounded by the bomber-plane like buzz of hundreds of mosquitoes coming to feast on us. Even with gallons of bugspray, the whole experience becomes a full on psychological nightmare.

The good side to the night also turned out to be the bugs. As we roamed around the paths in the dead of night, through the scrub land, the lightning bugs joined us. And not just a few, but easily as many as there were mosquitoes. As you turn you see 10's of lightning bugs going off in random sequence in any direction. It clearly is something to experience.
Other notables were:
The Texas Tortoise and his adorable inability to run away from me fast enough before I caught him (sorry no pic provided)

The Pauraque's sitting in the road, flying up quickly as you drive by. Pauraque's are insect eating birds very similiar to Chuck-Wills Widdows. This happens to be more common than I imagined. As other nightjars do, they enjoy sitting on the ground, and what better place than a clear road.

The parks rabbit problem, as everywhere you look there are rabbits scurrying back into the brush


The next day we went down to South Padre to check out the beach. Now I've spent most of my teenage summers down at Port Aransas, so while this was only a slight upgrade, it still is always nice to go down to the beach.














The highlight is our friend the Willet deciding to join us. (Try the zoom in for better effect)


That evening, Jacquie took me to her favorite spot to watch the sunset. There sat a small gazebo overlooking a large lake (whose name escapes me), with the banks of the lake surrounded by tall grass and small trees. As we sat there, 20-30 dragonflies flew around the gazebo feasting on any bugs that may have hindered the moment. It truly was one of the most peaceful things I've experienced. The world seemed to move slower, as the clouds slowly moved past the setting sun:
Continues I will post some of my favorite pictures from that night:
















































Here's what Windows Live Photo gallery did with all the photo's together. Not too bad, though I had to do some cropping. You have to click on it to truly enjoy it.

It begins

September 19th-15th, 2010
I started my journey Sunday September 19th. My car was packed to the brim, with more stuff than I really needed. But I was finally off none the less. My first destination was down to my friend Morgans in Port Aransas, Tx. Where I surely would spend the next four days contributing nothing to society. Frankly, that's what friends are for.

On the drive down I quickly ran into a tropical storm hitting near the South Texas and Mexico border. This resulted in catastrophic flooding in Corpus Christi. Many exits were too full of water to drive across and cops were sitting at certain places on the highwaykeeping people from driving through the ever creeping water. I learned later this is a normal occurrence as Corpus floods every time a tear is shed.

As my little Mazda 3 hydroplanned all over the road, I pulled off to meet Morgan at Buffalo Wild Wings. Riding along the access road, I drove across many questionable roads covered in water and even witnessed a woman get stuck. This happened as I let her go infront of me. Effectively using her as a test dummy. She got out, I'm sure.

But I finally made it and had a good time watching the sunday NFL games.

The remaining days with Morgan were spent inside because of the rain. Luckily, we had video games and pizza to fill our times. Like I said, that's what friends are for.

When we did go outside, we spent it wisely hitting up the local candy shop, Winstons. This is a favorite destination of anyone I go to Port Arnasas with and never a let down. It seems to get more expensive everytime I go. As when I was 16 I could buy my bag of candy for less than $5 but gas and sodas were cheaper then as well.






But as fast as it came, it was time to go. So fatter than I was before I left Thursday morning for Laguna Atascosa NWR