No birding this morning. It sprinkled, and the master birder called it off. Too wet to bird. What is that? A little sprinkle and we can't watch the birds? We were signed up for the afternoon boat tour out of Rockport over to the wildlife refuge to see the whooping cranes. They did the morning tour, and called ours off. Too wet. Guess it was a little rougher out on the water. Judy and I wandered around and saw a few. Hung out at the house. Then we drove around and saw a lot. Mostly water birds. Tons of water birds. A whole pack of black-bellied whistling ducks. Don't see those just anywhere. Big duck. Bright orange bill. Gray head. Reddish brown body. Broad white wing stripe. Black belly. Bright orange legs and feet. Clearly a committee effort.
Talked with some neighbors about bird successes. Turned out we covered the same territory today, just at different times. Then they went and ruined our whole day by asking: "Did you see those fulvous whistling ducks mixed in with the black bellied whistling ducks?" Fulvous? We didn't see any fulvous whistling ducks. We've never seen any fulvous whistling ducks. It's too late to go back tonight. It's too dark to see them. Now we have to go back to the same place tomorrow, hope the birds are still there, and see if we can find the new duck.
At the last park we were in, I noticed hardly anybody ever left. In state parks and KOAs and such, people pull in in the afternoon, then there is an exodus the next morning. Not so at the Gulf Waters RV Park. We'd see one or two people leave each day, but most people were just planted. Then I noticed something else. Usually, there are more motorhomes than any other kind of RV, but here, across from us on the north side of the pond, of the thirteen units we could see, eleven of them were trailers. Nine fifth-wheels and two travel trailers. That leads me to a theory. People that want to go to one place and just park it, tend to buy fifth-wheels over motorhomes. Makes sense. Why pay for two vehicles you can drive, when you can buy a nice truck, then buy a big fifth-wheel that costs a lot less than a motorhome? So, people that want to go everywhere and do everything must prefer motorhomes. People with motorhomes are less focused than fifth-wheelers. People with fifth-wheels do the same thing over and over. Wow! You can tell a lot about people from what they drive.
I explained my new insight to Judy. She pointed out that on our side of the pond, there were nine spaces occupied, and seven of them were motorhomes. That didn't fit my conclusion at all, so I decided the south side data was an anomaly and threw it out. My theory stands unchallenged.
Switching the pet dishes didn't work. Each animal still goes straight for the food intended for the other every time. Guess we'll have to go back to the name-tag idea. That should take care of it.
We have a nice view. Found a specimen oak tree in the forest campground.
