§ Birding Texas 101

Y'all know by now, that when I take my day trippin' travels and share photos, my main purpose is to head to my destination to tally my steps for the day and to take in some birding. Well, over the last year, I have taken, literally, tens of thousands of photos of birds. Some, I have shared on my bird photo blog, while others,  saving them for record keeping. My record keeping is just that...each photo is dated, so when I go back into my archived folders, I know which birds are in my area in that month. Some migrate of course, while most are year 'round residents of South Texas. I thought I'd take one photo from each month's photo record and publish them on Day Trippin' for a change of pace. These frames were added before I changed the template, eliminating my blog's sidebar, and redesigned the frame to a simpler one. [I also have chosen twelve for 'nature' of each month in 2019 to be published at a later date]. Here goes. Birds for the month of:

January 2019 - Brown Pelican



February 2019 - Crested Caracara



March 2019 - White Winged Dove



April 2019 - Reddish Egret

[below, is a white morph, there is a dark morph also which is aptly named and more common.] This particular white morph is in breeding colors. Note the pink and blue on the face...just when breeding. Also, the open wing stance is called a canopy and is believed they do this when hunting for food to shade the water surface for better visibility.  Guide books and websites will tell you this is the only bird that will canopy when feeding, but I have seen egrets doing the very same, and have recorded it with photo proof.  Did the egrets evolve to this behavior also?

May 2019 - Chipping Sparrow



June 2019 - Fledging Northern Mockingbird



July 2019 - Northern Cardinal in molt.  Molting takes place after breeding and takes weeks to regrow new feathers.



August 2019 -Tri-colored Heron



September 2019 - Great Blue Heron



October 2019 - Summer Tanager

This is a female, the male is all red. Sometimes sighted are dappled yellow, orange and red...the dappled is anywhere from 1 year to adult plumage.

November 2019 - Green Jay

Interesting fact - I kinda secretly tend to call this the "mockingbird of the jay family". If not careful, you may think you hear a hawk [or several other bird calls, sometimes it sounds like a cat's meow] calling from the trees, then to discover it is the green jay!!  They are only seen in South Texas, rare sightings.  Mainly a bird of Old Mexico.

December 2018 - Herring Gull

Herring Gulls are one of few gulls that have yellow eyes. There are literally dozens of different gulls around Texas, and sometimes, if lucky, a rogue from another part of the States or Caribbean will visit. At first, they're difficult to ID at times unless you know specific anatomy and colors to associate.  For instance wing markings, eye color, leg color, size, breeding colors, bill shape and markings, like the ring billed gull.  Guess what?  It has a ring around its bill!

[Corpus Christi had a Bar-Tailed Godwit show up in our parks and bay area... from Britain, a few years back.  And birders were literally FLOCKING -pun intended- to our town with tripods, cameras and binoculars; from all over USA and close by foreign lands.  Of course, I was too]  Bud, at times, went with me to help locate it among the local godwits ... and once he made reference to the showing of so many 'crazy' bird watchers it was like the movie [based on a non-fiction book of the same title] The Big Year -starring Steve Martin and other well-known names.  It was, and oftentimes is just exactly like the movie.  If you've never seen the movie it's a good one.  Fun, funny, educational, well written and directed.  And if you do decide to watch it, you will see a bit of me in it too.  Not physically, but me as one of those fanatic birders.

§ Early in the Day at Port A....

I left before sunrise [As always. Mostly to avoid traffic and rush hour]. By the time I got to the islands, the cloud cover was showing rain showers on the horizon, so I pulled off the island highway onto a beach access road and arrived at the dunes and pulled off on the beach to snap a few photos of the morning sun...

...after taking a couple of photos of the skyline and horizon, I traipsed back to retrieve my lens ball which I tote in the car all the time. I then walked back near the incoming surf and dropped the ball on the sand, hoping to kneel down and get some of the sky's colors in the globe. Well, I almost lost the ball!!! The tide came in and drenched my legs, knees, and half of my shorts I was wearing...soaking my shoes!!  I  jumped up, and then, watched the water as it washed my ball out to sea with the ebb tide!! LOL. No, I didn't panic. It is heavy enough that I would have been able to wade back in and save the day. But, I was WET now. That meant I had to get out my blanket from the car to use on my seat to get back in and drive to Port A from there. Not a good start for my day trippin'!!!  I only got one photo before the whole scenario put the hipper-dipper to my intentions....

It's about 15 miles from the beach where I parked to get the sunrise, and by the time I arrived at Port A, the sky had cleared. No rain! Bummer. Another scorcher in just a few hours' time.

I first stopped at one of this village's birding hotspots and saw dozens of different birds including one species I haven't seen in over two years! [That was exciting....made up for walking around in my damp clothes]. This weekend, I will show photos of the special bird seen [the largest wingspan in North America ---in relation to body size]. Anyway, all in all it was a beautiful, peaceful, tranquil time. I was alone on the boardwalk for quite some time before others arrived. That's another reason I leave so early....Alone time!! Just me, the bird song, the scenery....

...after leaving this spot on the map, I headed out for the 2nd stop. A few white ibis graced the tree branches, a couple of grackles and a lone killdeer. On a floating log in the pond, one turtle. I stopped to get a photo of the turtle then noticed a 2nd turtle trying to board 'ship'. It was comical. The 2nd one made a couple of attempts to no avail, making the 1st turtle hang on as the log rolled and bobbed in the water like a fishing float...Once the 2nd turtle accomplished joining its buddy, the log rolled, capsized and they both disappeared under the murky water! You had to be there to watch it all go down to laugh at it all as it took place....

Once I saw the special bird, I thought maybe they flew to the ship channel...so, I drove over to Charlie's Pasture along the channel. No special bird...they disappeared. But, I saw a brown pelican perched on a hurricane damaged pier...

....off to the jetty and beach I went...

I walked the beach for a while longer, and when the ships came in, I was too far away to get there beside them in time to check for any dolphin activity. The phone rang, it was my son, and the wind was blowing a goodly speed, keeping him from hearing me well enough...I got back in the car, put the phone on bluetooth, and left for Corpus. We talked the entire way, as we both headed home.

§ Cutest Panhandler I've Seen....

pan·han·dle 1 (păn′hăn′dl)
verb.
To approach strangers and beg for money or food.

The fisherman has a small fish caught on the end of his line. He's removing the hook from it, while the 'stranger' approaches....

The stranger's begging gets notice, and the fisherman talks to him as he tosses the food port side....

...the stranger is ever so grateful, bowing, giving thanks to the fisherman's generosity, as he moves on to the next sucker....fisherman in line.

§ Lensball Sunrise

There was a high bank of clouds on the horizon when I arrived at the beach, blocking out the sun for some time after sunrise. But I stuck around and got photos anyway. The first two, below, is of a structure on the beach made of driftwood. It reminded me of a Native American Teepee. The other is a Black Skimmer feeding along the shore [just above my Hootin' Anni watermark]

 

...the rest are all the Gulf, the sun, and the lensball. The 5th one down from this series has a flock of brown pelicans in view:

...dunno why this turned as dark as it did, but I liked it, so added it to the series.

§ The Week AFTER Easter....

Apparently, I had a screw loose. Good thing my older brother wasn't here when I noticed after I cleaned out the laptop and was picking it up to put it away in its proper place, he'd never let me down on that one. He always thought I was one watt short of a light bulb. Not to mention Bud! I won't go into detail, but just picture an arthritic man, rolling on the floor laughing and between gulps for air, he was stuttering "I wish Butch were here!" [Butch, being my brother -he and Bud were always cahootin' over something devilish]. And picture me just walking away, leaving him stranded and having to maneuver himself up to standing position.  Serves him right!!!! I'm all fixed now tho, and everything is locked in with no brain matter loss.  At least for now, I've had no ill side-effects other than a mild headache after all the screwing I did.

The last four days I've been AWOB [absent without blogging]... working on the yard pelican statue. I couldn't work on it too long at a time since the morning sun was in my eyes and I couldn't see Didley Squat to paint very well. And by the time afternoon rolled around, it was too hot for me with no shade had. So, I painted about half an hour before sunrise [at first light] until it peaked over the neighbor's roof into my eyeballs. And I finished it. I wanted to get it done once I started on it 'cause rain is predicted this weekend. I did go ahead and attempt making it look like the more commonly seen brown pelican. I forgot to take a before photo before beginning, so I searched my blog for the white pelican..

BEFORE:



AFTER:



And I still haven't seen nor heard from Didley Squat. 

Ms. G at Connections More shared a recipe for Sunshine Cake. Saturday, the day before Easter, we had some special-made mini cakes. They were called Egg White Cake...in the shape of an egg of course, white cake, candy coated and colored, with an egg white meringue center and sprinkles. Pretty good. But I couldn't wait to try her recipe. Everything in it was everything Bud and I like. Especially pineapple. Now to be truthful, I tweaked her recipe some for a bit more heart healthy dessert. I used only egg whites since I hafta watch my cholesterol intake, sugar free cake mix, and no sugar added cool whip, plus crushed pineapple in its own juice instead of heavy syrup. And I must say it was an Easter favorite for us! I made baked ham, buttered yams, and tossed salad along with steamed broccoli. We both had to go back and get a 2nd opinion on the cake tho!! Thanks. Ms. G!!!! I may add halved pecans on top of the cool whip topping next time...it was so close to pineapple upside down cake without the mess.

The special Egg White Cakes ... an Easter gift to us...

And, the Sunshine Cake....



We cleaned our plates: