Warblers

All winter we see yellow rumped warblers and the occasional orange crowned, black and white, and pine warbler. But today, right in our yard, we got a northern parula and a yellow throated warbler. This is the first time we’ve ever been here for the start of the warbler migration. It has begun.

This morning we saw several crested caracara and a white tailed hawk from our patio. We went over to Paradise Pond in town this evening to see what was there and got another northern parula, plus black crowned and yellow crowned night herons, more yellow rumps, an orange crowned warbler, and a blue-gray gnatcatcher. Tonight in the dark, I got a flyover by an owl, probably a short-eared owl.

The yellow throated warbler loved the camera. The parula refused to pose.

Choke canyon state park/lake corpus christi

Non-birders just hang up now. Hit the delete key. We took a day trip to Choke Canyon State Park and Lake Corpus Christi.

Black bellied whistling duck

Fulvous whistling duck

Greater white fronted goose

Snow goose

Ross’s goose

American wigeon

Mallard

Mottled duck

Blue winged teal

Green winged teal

Canvasback

Redhead

Ring necked duck

Pied billed grebe

American white pelican

Neotropic cormorant

Double crested cormorant

Anhinga

Great blue heron

Great egret

Snowy egret

Cattle egret

Black vulture

Turkey vulture

Osprey

Cooper’s hawk

Crested caracara

American kestrel

Common moorhen

American coot

Killdeer

Black necked stilt

Long billed curlew

Laughing gull

Ring billed gull

White winged dove

Mourning dove

Golden fronted woodpecker

Vermilion flycatcher

Great kiskadee

Couch’s kingbird

Scissor tailed flycatcher

Loggerhead shrike

Green jay

Purple martin

Cave swallow

Barn swallow

Bewik’s wren

Ruby crowned kinglet

Northern mocking bird

European starling

Yellow rumped warbler

Chipping sparrow

Northern cardinal

Pyrrhuloxia

Red winged blackbird

Eastern meadowlark

Great tailed grackle

American goldfinch

Saw some deer, but no javelina. No wild turkeys. No roadrunners or phoebes. Always miss a few things.

Port aransas

The storms have passed. That was awful. It was so cold I had to put on long pants.

Port aransas

Rigs come and go. Some stand out.

This one stands out. It’s sixty feet long (we’re forty). We didn’t know there was such a thing as a sixty foot coach. It’s not a pusher it’s a puller, so it’s got that semi-truck nose on it. Peterbilt front end. Four slides.

He has a matching trailer but he had to leave it home because it won’t fit here. I can’t imagine it would fit anywhere except maybe a NASCAR infield. The coach itself doesn’t even fit here. Not much of a turning radius with that wheelbase. He left tire tracks over the sand and grass at every corner on the way in.

Sixty feet long. Flames all over. $100,000 matching trailer. 30,000 pound towing capacity.

I feel so inadequate.

Port aransas

Big storm today. First a beautiful 75 degrees, then the front hit. Heavy thunderstorms. Immediate twenty degree drop in temperature. High wind up to 50 mph so far. Snow north of us in Dallas. Put up the window awnings, closed the bedroom slide, and hunkered down in the coach till this thing passes.

Gulf waters

Our first oleander flower since December. It’s March. Spring is springing.

Yard art

The flower shuffle continues…

With the help of a turtle.