§ Hawk Watch Platform...

Through August and November the annual hawk watch takes place daily from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the little town of Calallen, TX [part of the Corpus Christi annexation]. It takes place at Hazel Bazemore Park...the Nueces River, two ponds and the elevated platform for hawk watching. Daily, they have someone there; they're counters with their binoculars and little tickers...counting over the hours and recording the volumes during migration of hawks, osprey, egrets, anhingas, kites [bird], eagles, etc. - By the numbers at the end of the season, they are given grants for resarch through the following year.   Also, keeping track of the smaller migrants such as warblers, titmouses, many many kinds of sparrows, etc. and with luck, any vagrants that may fly over or decide to stop-over.

But, I get there earlier! First, if I wait 'til the counters arrive at 9 a.m., it's too hot this time of year. 2nd...I don't like crowds [they talk too much and too loudly for my birding experience]....Once it turns autumn-like with cooler mornings, I may stick around a while and see what flies over on their migration path. On Wednesday of this week, I was greeted at 7 a.m. with a lot of ground fog---

...as I observed the watering drip systems utilized to attract birds and wildlife, I saw a few birds...cardinals [in molting season and not very attractive] a yellow warbler, a blue-gray gnatcatcher, several white winged doves, hummingbirds, starlings, a cotton-tailed rabbit, and a green jay. The green jay is not rare but can be quite scarce in our area [more seen the closer you get to Brownsville, TX and Old Mexico].

Stepping off the platform to walk around the trails, I spotted a family of three white-tailed deer on the golf course fairway that is on the other side of the park's road...

By this time, the fog was lifting and I headed toward the river. As I rounded the bend, I thought I noticed an owl perched near a deer feeder [a long, long, way away from me!!] I lifted my binoculars to get a better view and sure 'nough...an owl!! [perched on the 'white' box in the field] I was thrilled!!! I don't see them much. I used the zoom lens and took a few photos, knowing all too well, the pictures wouldn't be clear 'cause so far, far away. As I snapped the shutter over and over, I realized something was amiss! The owl wasn't moving...

...I'd been had!!! A decoy!!!


- - - - -

It was time to leave. I took another way home from Alice/Robstown highway. Here's another time, I'd been had [it just wasn't my morning!] ...this highway edges the international airport just outside Corpus. And, I hit the area just as Vice President's motorcade was leaving to go and visit the town of Rockport...a year after he came for support of those residents in the town that was hit so hard by the hurricane. Snipers on the air terminal's roof...security high...we had to wait. Oh lordy!! And, the worst part of the whole scenario, I HAD READ HE WAS COMING HERE. I shoulda known better than to come home that way.

I Got my cable modem working. Thanks to Manny. He came late in the afternoon and fixed it. From what Bud told me, it was something to do with the connection up the pole in our backyard that has the cable coming across open air to the house. I thank them for coming out on Sunday. I guess they're supposed to, huh? Yay!!!!

I was soooooo bored.... Then, you say: "How bored WERE you Anni?" Then, I say..."I was so bored with the cable modem not working correctly and no online activities at all after early morning that I cleaned out the computer...of graphics, documents and photos and then, I drafted some blog issues for the week on notepad. I then actually watched a Dallas Cowboys game...of which I was pleased with the score" [no, I like my Denver Broncos, and Dallas always whips Broncos butts in the past]. With that said and done, I was still bored. It was too hot to go out and do any yard work, I didn't feel like reading much, it was a true pity party here, let me tellya. So I baked a pumpkin pie. After last week, seeing all the Canadians with their thanksgiving feasts made me crave pumpkin pie. Then, y'all ask "How good was it Anni?" Let me reiterate, pies are a favorite dessert for us. I went and thawed out some Cool Whip and we pigged out. My recipe uses Egg Nog. LOL ---why of course, I use light egg nog. Yep, yessiree...egg nog is in the dairy section of the stores now. Oh goodie, oh goodie!! Time to hide the scales.



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Sarah at Sarah's Blog is our hostess for this week. And she asks of us to take Fun Monday visitors on a day trip. Okay...here's the scoop. First off, my day begins with waking up early...between 4-6 a.m. --I work online while Bud is still in bed and the house is quiet. Then, as the sun rises, I walk!! Most every day. When I get home from my walk, I have my juice and toast and get back on the computer....by then, Bud is up and our day begins.......There is always something to do, or more than likely somewhere to go ---for Fun Monday I'll go with a day trip --- It's not much of a super duper kinda day trip, but it's one we took just last week. Just to get away from the mundane shopping and the city life. We took a drive through the cotton farms just south of us by about 40 miles, over "Farm to Market" roads, to reach our destination for the day. Along the way, we passed an old cotton gin.



Now to give you a little bit of background, we took the back roads, not any through highways, until we ended up on highway 77 that takes you through Kingsville down to the Rio Grande River and the border town of Brownsville. Of course being a day trip, we didn't go that far south. We stopped and shopped in the town that Richard King put on the map. You say to yourself: "Who is Richard King?" I'll tell you:

He was from New York City and an apprentice to a jeweler at the age of eight. His parents of Irish descent died when he was five. After two years, he ran away and hid on a ship. This was 1834. The captain of the ship sent Richard to school in Connecticut, but again he ran away and ended up making friends with Mifflin Kenedy[not a typo...one 'n']. Urging King to come with him to the Rio Grande.
Then, when King turned 26 he rode to the Lone Star Fair in Corpus Christi, passing the alkali flats to where the land opened into prairie covered in rich grasses. Richard King thought this would be ideal country for cattle.
His friend, Robert E. Lee [of Civil War fame], told him it wasn't Virginia, but it was country with a future. In 1853 King bought 15,000 acres paying two cents an acre. The deed for the land was recorded in Corpus Christi on Nov. 14, 1853. That day marked the beginning of the "King Ranch". Throughout his life's time, he was also historically attached to the title "blockade runner". where he had hauled cotton through his ranch land to Mexico, where the cotton would be put on Mexican ships that flew under the Mexican flag; making a fortune hustling cotton. By his death, the King Ranch covered some 614,000 acres...making the ranch in Texas one of the largest in the world at the time.

Okay, so we know the history, and why Kingsville is so named. The town itself lies about the middle of the ranch as it once was. King Ranch is still in existence but has had parcels of land sold off. The Mexican ranch hands of today are descendants of the original ranch hands of the 1800s. They are, and were, known as Kineños [pronounced ki NENyos] --King's men.

Bud and I walked the 'old town' of Kingsville, since we have previously taken the tour of the ranch as it stands today and we have plans on returning next month anyway, so want to keep ourselves from getting too bored with it. LOL. The historic part of town is okay...nothing to really boast about except for its history. We also toured the original railroad depot that has been refurbished and turned into a local railroad museum.




Then, we opted to shop at some of the stores. My favorites were a local crafting store where the locals sell their handmade wares, originally "Flato Opera House", now called Sellers Market, and then across the street to an antique piano shop.


[In the show window of the Antique Piano Store, the proprietor had set up a 'mirrored grand piano with an animated skeleton playing it...it was fun to watch. -see photo]


Going out to lunch, then driving home...we went into Callallen and stopped at the Wal Mart there and ended up swinging off the interstate as we headed home later in the afternoon, and went to the CC International and had a beer while watching a Southwest Airlines plane being boarded by passengers and getting ready for takeoff...





~...end Fun Monday.
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