Platform Boat Follow-up

Remember that odd thing I sent pictures of; the platform boat? We got an explanation from our birding friend Jon, who is also a fishing boat driver all summer:

… your boat is a "jack-up" oil rig. They will pull up next to oil platforms and the pilings go into the water to the bottom and then they jack the center part up and work on the oil rigs....

Jon

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From: Steve Taylor [mailto:spt@thetaylorcompany.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 7:20 PM
Subject: platform boat

A really odd thing. A workboat/platform kind of thing. It motored down the channel under its own power, returning from the open ocean. It has those giant pilings it can apparently put down, like an oil platform, but oil platforms generally don’t provide their own locomotion. Maybe it’s some kind of study vehicle. Maybe they do geologic surveys. Don’t know, but here it is.

First Annual Parade of Lights

When I described the parade as “taking shape”, I didn’t mean to suggest that there was any final form to it. It was a wonderfully random experience involving lights, music, bicycle horn honking, bell ringing, and laughter; that did manage to find its way around the entire park several times in several directions to at least occasional applause and delight. It went on well into the dark.

Plans have begun for the second annual Happy-After-Christmas Parade of Lights.

Gulf Waters

The first annual Happy-After-Christmas Parade of Lights takes shape.

Masked Ducks

A week ago, we got a masked duck report again. This time in a pond to the south. North of Weslaco. West of Raymondville. One hundred forty miles from here. Friday we made the drive. Masked ducks! Four of them. Right where they’re supposed to be. Life bird. Life is good.

Masked Ducks

Got a hot lead on a Masked Duck. In December 2007. A year ago.

We’ve seen most of the ducks that can be seen in North America. The Masked Duck is one we haven’t. It’s only in South Texas, and only once in a while, so if one gets reported, it’s worth a look. We’ve been after the Masked Duck for years, but didn’t get right to it. We were otherwise occupied in early December last year; but when we could, we went off to find it. We got directions to the pond, eighty-five miles from here. Drove right to it (the pond that is).

We went in search of a new bird, the Masked Duck, and we got a new bird, the Monk Parakeet (we had also heard about). To get to the pond with the Masked Ducks, we drove through the town of Orange Grove. In Orange Grove, if you turn right at the second intersection after the four-way stop and look in the first palm tree on the left, you’ll find the parakeets. If they’re not in the palm tree, roll down the window and listen. You’ll hear where they are. Loud little buggers. They’re filling the head of that one palm tree with a communal stick nest. They like to talk while they work.

What we’re used to calling parakeets, those little 7” long cage birds you can teach to talk, are actually Budgerigars from Australia. Budgies. These Monk Parakeets are small parrots, almost 12” long, much bigger than a Budgie. There are probably twenty-five parakeets working on this one tree-nest.

Anyway, we got the parakeets last December. We didn’t get the Masked Duck though. There was a pair there in the pond but they left before we got there.

Gulf Waters

A boisterous Christmas Eve dinner and gift exchange with our Gulf Waters family.

Pelican portraits

Our pond

And a fine looking female grackle.

National Seashore

And Crested Caracaras on the Laguna Madre.

National Seashore

A drive down the seashore. A peregrine falcon.

There is hurricane junk all around him because he’s on the National Seashore Beach.

Jetty

Dolphins. And big old sea turtles swimming in the channel.

Platform boat

A really odd thing. A workboat/platform kind of thing. It motored down the channel under its own power, returning from the open ocean. It has those giant pilings it can apparently put down, like an oil platform, but oil platforms generally don’t provide their own locomotion. Maybe it’s some kind of study vehicle. Maybe they do geologic surveys. Don’t know, but here it is.

Jetty

A look back from the end of the jetty.

It was fun weaving Becky into our weekend. She flew home Sunday. She paid a weather price by returning to Denver though. A 90 degree temperature difference.

Our pond

A long billed curlew and a comfy dowitcher.

Becky's visit

A walk on the jetty. Blue sky. Sunshine. Calm water. Ships. Oil platform boats. Dolphins galore. Fish, birds, turtles, and Becky. Lunch at the Rusty Jeep. A darned good day.

Our pond

The black bellied whistling duck family visits.

Grandkids

Hanging out with some of the guys last summer in Becky’s neighborhood; Alex, Conner, Austin, and me.

Port Aransas

Wild weather night last night. Wind and rain. We pulled in one of the bedroom slides to quiet it down some.

It’s a social group here. We get together to celebrate holidays and each other’s arrivals, anniversaries, and birthdays. To simplify, we’ve taken to consolidating events. Tonight was dinner at Juan’s to celebrate five December birthdays, three arrivals, new owners, and new friends. Dinner for thirty. That was not a quiet get-together.

It’s quiet now, though. Back home, just the two of us. The wind has gone down. Now we’ll watch the thermometer go down. We’re in the forties. We’ll probably be in the thirties before the night is over. Then we get a warm-back-up.

Tomorrow afternoon, we get our Christmas present from Becky: Becky. She’s flying down to visit us for a couple days.

Weather

Heavy snow in Colorado. A change in the weather here too; a Norther. Heavy wind. Falling temperatures. A real blow. Right now it’s gusting to forty. Bouncing the rig. It’ll be like sleeping on a boat tonight.

Happy Birthday to Judy

Warm and windy. Brother Tom and Kathy are here. We all went out for Seafood at the marina tonight. A quiet day. A walk on the beach. Pelicans. My baby bride is sixty.

Happy Birthday to Judy.

Birding

A birding day with Jon. We didn’t go after a big day. We went after interesting birds. There have been a couple surf scoters on the water southeast of Kingsville. There has been a brant hanging out with a flock of snow geese in the same neighborhood. Both are good birds for Texas. One, the brant, is a lifer for me. On the way there, the purple sandpiper on the jetty at South Padre came up in conversation. (Jon hears about any unusual birds around.) A purple sandpiper? Another good bird for Texas, and also a lifer for me. Our fifty mile drive turned into a one hundred fifty mile drive. We were there by 10am. A purple sandpiper hanging out with a pack of ruddy turnstones at the very end of the jetty. It was cold and windy. We walked halfway out. It was wet and slippery. Waves were blowing over the rest of the jetty. Jon told me about a tropical parula in McAllen sixty miles inland. At that point, sixty miles to a life-bird sounded like a much better idea than two hundred dangerous yards to a life-bird, so off we went. We found the park where the tropical parula was supposed to be. We found two of them! Found other cool birds too, like plain chachalacas, white tipped doves, buff-bellied hummingbirds, golden fronted woodpeckers, green jays, long billed thrashers, a few warblers and gnatcatchers, and a black crested titmouse.

We didn’t go after a big day. We went after interesting birds. Altogether we listed seventy nine birds though; one of them a life-bird for me. Dark to dark. A four hundred eighty mile day.

Christmas

The turtle hauls his share of the Christmas load. The snowman does what he can.

Christmas

The neighborhood …