§ A Walk in the Park and Beignets...

The morning of Halloween, I opted to walk and check for birds in a downtown park. When I arrived at the destination, I was astounded by the number of vehicles parked in the two courthouse auxilary parking lots! I had to choose an area near the city library and walk from there to the park. I did find out the reason for all the "people" tho...The 2nd person to be running for Governor of Texas was campaigning near the courthouse. He trails Gov. Abbott by double digits, but I'm not so sure [by the number of cars] that is true. You really can't trust polls since you don't know where or how many are polled.

Okay, so at the park. It was very quiet. I mentioned on my bird photo blog that the mirgratory patterns for this year has been unique. Hardly any action for weeks. I did see a mockingbird, and heard other birdsong, but nothing really earth shattering! This park has several butterfly bushes around, and there was more activity at these spots than the tree canopies. I stopped and spent a great deal of time photographing the "pretties"....

I then hopped back in the car and drove a short distance to the largest cemetery for some birding. That too was quite busy with people...preparing for celebrating Día de los Muertos on November 1st. So, my walking was short lived. I did however see two red winged hawks and chased them around through the large oak trees just to get a few good photographs. Look closely!!! See him? I did get some better images that will go up this weekend on my bird photography blog.

I soon left and then thought our "treat for Halloween" this year will be the delicious sweet French/famous New Orleans dessert-pastries! And I knew right where to find 'em. The french bakery is in OLD Town Corpus Christi, and really kinda a dive establishment. Let me say, I wouldn't have a 'sit down' meal there, but I will order to go!! Expensive, but worth every dime. Powdered sugar Beignets!!! Cream filled of course. This time, I decided I'd choose the baked beignets instead of the deep fried ones. Deeeelicious.

from wikipedia:
Beignet is a type of fritter, or deep-fried pastry, usually made from yeast dough in France, ... Potato beignets from Haute-Savoie. Type, Pastry. Place of origin, Ancient Rome.

To round off my morning, I had to stop at the grocery store for milk and butter. When I went INTO the store it was mild and partly cloudy. The weather forecast the previous evening said that there was a cold front moving into our coastal area, bringing lots of chilly temps and much needed rain. Well, when I walked OUT of the grocery store, the front was making its way into the gulf coast...the bank of clouds reached as far as the eye could see from horizon to horizon. And, yes, we are getting the rain today!! [Tuesday]

§ The River Walk, and Sunday Strolling through the Park...

I got special permission from Flower Lady Lorraine to share this image. Y'all know how I love seeing hearts in nature...well, the one she shared HERE from her post was absolutely phenomenal in my opinion, I just had to ask her if it was alright for me to post about it. Here is her reply to my request...

"...thank you for your kind comment on my latest blog post, and yes it's ok that you linked to it."

Don't forget to take a look....it's worth a click to see the rainfall heart droplet on her flower * hint:  look a little left-center of the blossom!!!!  Lorraine, you definitely deserve an A+ for this find.

 _ _ _ _

 

Now to carry on with my day trippin'.... 

Early Sunday morning I walked along the river at the park.  It was a perfect morning, quiet in the park [people-wise...I really enjoy the solitude of no crowds, even before the covid outbreak!], birdsong, mild temperature and sunny, blue, clear sky!!  I tend to  make the most of it at times and climb hills and traipse through the wooded areas through the natural trails, and some hills have wooden stairways that I go up AND down for a cardiovascular work-out [other times I just walk the park road] .  Not often do I go in the off-the-main-trail wooded areas, mind you...different seasons there are wood ticks!  I've come home with them on my clothes and body, so I tend to stay out of the woods during the Spring and early Summer.  Anyway, here is my walking, care to join me?  

Around the two lakes, along the river, viewing from the observation boardwalks, red leaves in the woods, barren trees along with evergreen,  the hawk watch platform, the special wildlife drip system below the hawk deck where most come to drink...with the likes of javelina, deer, birds, coyotes, more birds...squirrels and birds!!!  Come along.

Walk this way....

 

 

 

...and the stairways aren't all that dangerous as they look...the steps are set firmly in the ground, not on any rickety ol' wood frame. Trust me, I wouldn't use them if there was a chance of them collapsing. The one who designed and came up with the idea of setting them in the ground was 'genius'. And, best of all, looks VERY natural [I guess the railing isn't much so, but the steps are. lol]  The degree of the angle makes for a good work-out...And the photo at the beginning of my day trippin' section, the one that is vertical and has the chartreuse green arrow pointing to the top of the tree in the far distance [the dark spot!], is a hawk!! I had to stop and get my zoom lens focused...it was a red shouldered hawk.

§ Wildlife Reguge in Town by the Bay

For the last couple of weeks, off and on, I've been watching a particular bird and hoping to see two of them. In the past we've had several appear in our area of Texas, then...become scarce.  If I did see two, perhaps they'll stick around during the breeding season long enough for me to see, in person, the breeding plumage of this species. So far, I've only viewed the more colorful plumage in guidebooks and online. Well, this week, I DID SEE TWO. Have they paired up? Are they one of each gender? I don't know...but, I will keep watching for them, and hope they don't leave the area before their courtship begins if they are indeed one male and one female. On a few of those days the past weeks, I've seen ONE for sure that's been 'out in the open' more. They're being quite elusive right now...remaining well-hidden in the foliage along the banks of the feeder canal.

They're Anhingas [an HING ahs]-the 'hing' is like king] - Also known as Snake Birds. Their very long neck, when swimming in the water, is exposed making them resemble a snake. Unlike most water birds, their oil glands are not quite as developed as most, so most often, when out of water you will see them drying their wings by either expanding them in the sun/air or grooming to dry their feathers.

This one, I believe is the female [I hope]...all the time I stuck around, it remained partially hidden and finally went further back into the cover while the other one....

...which I believe is the male, remained less concealed, keeping busy, preening.



COOPER'S HAWK

From the observation deck that is on the shore of the bay area I spotted a Cooper's Hawk far away along the tree lined trail. That instigated me to walk the trail in hopes of getting a closer photo of the hawk. By the time I reached the area in the trees where the hawk was located from far away, it had left. But here's what else I saw. And yes, I've spotted some of the surveillance cameras as the signs clearly state. Dunno if the cameras are operative tho. lol

Moonshine and Sunshine in the palms

...spending only a couple of hours at the park, I still had to get to the grocery store and stop to pick up some lunch. It was going to be a beautiful day with plenty of sunshine and mild tolerate temperatures.

§ Chapman Ranch Hawk Hunt...

Bud and I went hawk hunting the other day....driving the back roads in the area known as Chapman's Ranch, then, we decided to cross the causeway bridge and drive into Padre Island National Seashore [a federal, national, park].

CHAPMAN RANCH

Chapman Ranch, at one time, was a small community, now incorporated into the Corpus Christi City Limits. Chapman Ranch is on Farm Road 70  in southeastern Nueces County. It  is so named for a family that purchased 34,000 acres of the King Ranch [King Ranch has 825,000 acres] in 1919.  Today the shell of the town, Chapman's Ranch, no longer exists, but a few abandoned buildings remain.  Oil wells, cotton farms, small farm homes - large ranch houses, and a few cattle dot the landscape. On this particular day, the cotton fields were partially harvested and seen were the yellow cotton bales scattered here and there.   A couple of operating cotton gins are seen driving from the intersection of County Road 70 to Interstate 69/State Hwy 77.  Many many farm to market roads and county roads can be driven on...and yes,  on any given day during the entire year, there are other birders out  there with their scopes and binoculars....hunting for hawks and falcons [among other bird species].

The birds we sighted were, White Tailed Hawks, Swainson's Hawks, Starlings, Doves, Sparrows, Crested Cara Caras, Sea Gulls, Purple Martins, Grackles, To show you some in photos...


White Tailed Hawk - Swainson's Hawk in Flight - Purple Martin

Read More on the History of the Chapman Ranch/King Ranch Secrets [Texas Monthly Online]
Elevation of the ranch area is shown to be 26 feet above sea level....Corpus Christi is about 7 feet elevation...while, of course, the park [PINS] is sea level!!!

This 'leg'  [the ranch area] of the hawk hunt was about a 50 mile round trip.  Once back into the city we headed south and eventually paying the fee to enter through the gates of Padre Island National Seashore National Park.  Here, we saw only ONE hawk both coming and going, but we pulled off onto the beach at the end of the road [as far as a two wheeled drive vehicle can go], and enjoyed a bit of the surf.  After an hour or so there, walking along the shore, we left and pulled off toward Laguna Madre before leaving the park boundaries.  This trip added about 50-60 more miles on the odometer....I'll share some more photos in my upcoming post!!