Bird Jackpot! - Sun., Dec.22

Today I saw a long-eared owl, vermilion flycatcher, mute swans, and an American wigeon. Quite a day at Mitchell Lake Audubon Wetlands in San Antonio. Bird-watchers have been a-twitter about the long-eared owl for over a week. Last week I couldn't find it, but today...jackpot!

Long-eared owl.

Long-eared owl in a mesquite tree.

Long-eared owl.

But that wasn't the only unusual bird seen today. We were walking along the isthmus between the East and West Polder. I looked across the pond and said, "Wow! Those are the biggest honkin' geese I've ever seen ** or ** those are swans!" When I got back to the Visitor Center, I asked if there were swans in the west pond and the answer was, "Yes." I wanted to know what kind and was informed they are mute swans.

Mute swans

Mute swans

I consider the swans quite a find in south Texas. Their range is the Midwest and Northeast, especially Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, Kentucky, along the northeastern seaboard, eastern Minnesota, eastern Iowa and eastern Missouri.

Bob and I had a great walk today, although a cold wind was blowing down from the north. As we were walking, we saw a number of people wandering through the weeds and brush taking photos. We heard a bird making a very unusual noise and couldn't identify it.

I tried to find the unique birds on our way back to the Visitor Center, but no luck. However in the Visitor Center, a birder was talking about adding TWO birds to his birding life list today: the long-eared owl and a common pauraque (which is a type of nighthawk). We're thinking the bird with the unusual call was the pauraque.

In addition to the above birds, we saw:

American wigeon and Northern shoveler

Snowy egret & tri-colored heron with four turtles.

Wind-blown snowy egret and five sunning turtles.

Northern shrike.

 Below is one of my personal favorites: the vermilion flycatcher.

Vermilion flycatcher

Vermilion flycatcher

Black-necked stilt

Great blue heron taking off.

Northern shrike

Three turtles sunning

I was very happy with the bird sightings today! Maybe I'll go back tomorrow to look for more. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

After our walk, we went home and I showered to get ready for our employee Christmas party at the RV park tonight. We headed over to the Rec Hall at 6 p.m. and were greeted with our choice of beer, wine, pop, water or spiked eggnog. Bob and I shared a bottle of prickly pear beer. It was good. The hall looked so festive decorated for the holidays and our party.

Rec Hall decorated for employee dinner.

Helen (co-worker), Brenda (manager), and Pam (friend).

The dinner was catered by The Big Bib BBQ restaurant. It was delicious! We had smoked turkey, smoked brisket, pulled pork, jalapeno sausages and regular sausages with fantastic BBQ sauce to put on the meats. In addition, we had scalloped potatoes, green beans with cut up sausages, corn bread, sourdough bread with cheeses, squash casserole, veggie tray, and fruit tray. For dessert, we feasted on banana cream pie, chocolate cream pie, cheesecake and cupcakes.

Here are all the people who work in the park and their significant others.

Helen (office), Ron, Brenda (manager), Terry (manager),
Fran (activities director), Tom (landscape)

Dixie (cleaning), Felix (cleaning), Rose,
Mike (maintenance), DeAnna (Security) and Larry (Security)

Steve (landscape/maintenance), Jan (office), Lee (cleaning),
Delia (office), Virginia, Pam, Bob (maintenance)

Steve (landscape, Margaret, Vickie, Ralph (office),
me (office), Bob

We had a great evening with our RV park "family." And I'll tell you what, there was plenty of food. I'm still full five hours later.

After the party, we took care of seven loads of laundry. A very satisfying day from start to finish,

Travel Bug out.

Corpus Christi, Follow-up #2 -- Tues., Oct. 9, 2012

So much excitement for my second foray out after the face plant. Bob drove us to Corpus Christi for my second follow-up with the maxillofacial surgeon. 

Once again, Dr. Cutbirth was amazed by how well my face is healing. Today, he took out the nose stents which kept my nasal passages open while my broken nose set up enough to support my nose by itself. Removing the stents entailed him removing one stitch from each nostril, then using tweezers to pull out the stents. OW, OW, OW. 

I admit, I cried and screeched a bit. But once they were out, I could breathe so much better through my nose! Now I can try sleeping in bed again instead of the recliner. He told me not to worry about lying on my side because my cheeks have enough cartilage growing over the bones now that it is like a callus. He said the bones won't separate at this point.

The appointment lasted all of ten minutes. He again patiently answered my questions. I will go back in two weeks to have the wires removed from my jaws. After the wires come out, I will make an appointment to see a dentist for x-rays and deep cleaning of my teeth. At that time, I will find out my options for what will need to happen with my teeth before we go to Australia. Worst case would be I will have three or four teeth removed from the top front jaw. I'm hoping I will be able to have some type of temporary front teeth  put in. Guess we'll see.

After the appointment, Bob drove me over to Mustang Island State Park on the Gulf Coast. The state park has a security gate which is open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Love how the Escape pod is framed.

 

I took a couple of photos of the campground and the ocean. From the campsites, it's a short walk through the dunes to the ocean.

Pretty basic back-in sites at the campground.

The walk to the Gulf Coast.

Or, if you have 4WD, you can drive and camp on the beach.

Driving west from Mustang Island, shorebirds were all along the intercoastal waterway. I was able to zoom in on these two beauties from the shoulder of the road.

Long-billed curlew.

Great blue heron.

Next we headed over to look at another campground I had read about: Nueces County Texas--Padre Balli Park.

We were not impressed with this "campground." See what you think. There is good access to the Gulf beach and Bob Hall Pier, however.

Padre Balli Campground.

Another view of Padre Balli.

The beach and pier.

Well, as long as we're here, let's continue on to Padre Island National Seashore!

After waiting for a pilot car to take us a few miles through road construction, we arrived at Malaquite Pavilion Visitor Center around 4:00 p.m. Lucky for us the Visitor Center was open until 5:00 p.m. We watched two short videos: one on the five types of sea turtles that live along Padre Island with an emphasis on Kemp's ridley turtles, and one on orientation to the seashore. 

Padre Island, at 65.5 miles, is the longest barrier island in the world. It is noted for abundant bird and marine life, excellent fishing, world-class windsurfing [we saw a couple of people out windsurfing today], and wide, sandy beaches. The Gulf coastline includes windswept dunes, wild landscapes of coastal prairie grasses, teeming tidal flats, and warm offshore waters. [So says the National Parks of Texas brochure.]

A display in the Visitor Center anchored by Bob. LOL.

I can't smile, so this is the best I can do for now.

When we finished here, we headed over to HEB grocery where Bob bought me a berry smoothie and he got snacks (Triscuits, cheese and orange juice) for the 2-1/2 hour ride back to the 5er.

It was a very beautiful day. I got a little tired, but managed to walk around a bit. I did sleep for a wee bit in the car on the way back.

Welcome to Bob and Linda, new followers from Bob and Linda's RV Travels. They do reviews of RV parks, write travel blogs about their travels (since 2008), including their trek to Alaska. 

Tomorrow Bob's taking me to Costco so I can have a new optometry exam. Once that is done they can write a new prescription and I can order new glasses to replace the ones that busted up my forehead and nose when I fell. If possible, I will have them just order new lenses for the old frames. We'll see how that goes. That will be a much shorter trip.

Travel Bug saying "It's great to be traveling again!"