Our Big Day!!!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Up early (for me) this fine Sunday morning, caught a quick breakfast of yogurt and granola, then headed for coffee at the local one-stop Gulf Coast Market here in Crystal Beach where we are spending three nights in the Bolivar Peninsula RV Park.  When Duffy headed to the RV park office to pay for our stay while he waited for me to get ready, he put on his sunglasses saying he was going incognito so the mosquitoes wouldn't recognize him.  I don't think the sunglasses helped, but the wind did.  On our agenda today:  Bolivar Peninsula viewing spots, High Island, the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge and the adjacent Skillern track. 

On the way to Anahuac, which involved driving north of the Bolivar Peninsula, then a long way west as though we were going to the town of Anahuac, we stopped at a couple of small, marked birding spots.  We thought we were in an abandoned refuge, but learned that these, too, had been hit by Hurricane Ike and not fully restored.  Not-for-profit groups maintain these, and as group members and funds are available, they are gradually restored.

At Anahuac NWR we found a tiny little building marked "Visitor Center."  Just a bit ahead was a much larger facility that was being built out of blocks.  Another victim of Ike.  The volunteer told us that this area had been hit by a twenty foot wall of water, destroying everything in its path.  The small building is temporary as the Visitor's Center is being rebuilt - the block building under construction.

Anahuac NWR has two roads to follow, one that goes virtually straight from the entrance and one that veers off to the right.  We took the straight path.  This is a drive-through site over a dirt

track that leads through bayous, ponds, and marshes.  Including the usual birds to be added to this year's list (we start anew every year), we saw Boat-Tailed Grackles*, Great-Tailed Grackles, Black* and Turkey Vultures, Northern Mockingbird (Texas State Bird), Red-Wing Black Birds, Barn Swallows, Northern Shovelers (ducks), Blue-Winged Teal (ducks), Willets* (long-legged shorebirds), Wilson's Snipe* (wader), Snowy Egrets (waders), Great Egrets (waders), Great Blue Herons (waders), Killdeer (long-legged shorebird, also found inland), Double-Crested Cormorants (sea or fresh water birds), Gadwalls (ducks), Northern Harriers (hawks), Laughing Gull*, Long-billed Curlew* (long-legged wader), Lesser- and Greater*-Yellowlegs (long-legged waders), Roseate Spoonbills* (long-legged, large waders), Belted Kingfisher, White Ibis*, Glossy Ibis* (both long-legged waders), Fulvous Whistling Duck*, and Tri-Colored Heron* in breeding colors.  Oh, and did I mention an alligator resting in the grasses of the roadside channel, opposite the road, with one healthy, big, glossy eye open?

That's 28 birds in one day!  Eight more than our goal for the day! - purely a made-up number.  Twelve of these birds (marked with an "*") are new on our life list!!!  Whoo-hoo!  My were we whipped at the end of the day.  It took all the energy we could muster to fix dinner and go to bed.  Some of these new birds we've seen earlier in our trip, but they were new for us then.

I must have been so dazed with bird sightings that I left my bum bag (for my British friends, "fanny pack" in the U.S.) in the ladies' restroom, forgetting all about it until we were partway to the Skillern Track.  I called the credit union to cancel my credit and debit cards, but had a bad connection and limited service.  I lost the call midway through.  The Visitor's Center was closed when we returned, so there was no one to ask.  What a crummy end to a terrific day.

 Life, however, is filled with little miracles and many blessings.  Duffy knew where the NWR volunteer encampment was along the main road, so when we stopped in there and I walked up to a man working on equipment outside, he said "Let me see.  Pat Rader?  Fanny Pack?"  Oh, I am sure I was jumping up and down by then, never mind the wrong name.  The woman who had been working at the Anahuac Visitor's Center that day had taken it home with her.  She invited me in to her RV where she and her husband were enjoying their dinner.  I gave her a big hug.  I wish I could give a bear hug to the honest woman who found my fanny pack in the women's restroom and delivered it to the Visitor's Center across the road.  I am gratified at how many honest and friendly people are in the world.  What a marvelous, relieving end to a very terrific day!

(I had hoped to insert web photos of some of the birds here, but have yet to learn how.)


Monday, March 19, 2012


Today, I slept in.  I will not confess how long.  All I can say is it was nice.  Very nice.  When we finally got going, we made our way to the Gulf Coast Market to pick up a few things for dinner.  Instead of coming right back, we drove west along the peninsula to another birding spot along the beach to see what the storm was bringing in.  As we drove along the beach, we saw a gull we could not identify (may have been a Ring-Billed Gull) and lots of little Sanderlings or Sandpipers?  Or plovers or...?  The light was fading and we could not make out the details well enough to know any more than that there were at least three different kinds of shore birds there.  We are pretty sure, though, that we saw a Black-Bellied Plover, as distinctive as they are. 

Tomorrow, we're off to Galveston and points west.  Thunder storms are predicted.  Should be an exciting day.  The last thunder and lightening storm we were in set all of our electronic devices in motion like the Wonderland clock - having hissy-fits.

Until next time...,
Pam