Headin' North

We've left Central Texas and are heading for our summer "job" in Colorado. We will take a couple of weeks to make our way north and plan to visit a few new parks on the way. We chose Abilene State for our first stop. This area of West Texas can be pretty stark so we were pleasantly surprised to find a nicely shaded campground.

There are several Civilian Conservation Corp structures here in the park, including the pool house and viewing tower.

Our next stop will be Palo Duro State Park, also known as "The Grand Canyon of Texas".

Stay tuned...

Cactus Flowers

While we were at Laguna Atascosa, we saw plenty of cactus. Just before we left, the Prickly Pear came into bloom and surprised us with their variety of colors. Everywhere else we've seen Prickly Pear bloom yellow, but in Cameron County, Texas, they show a range of colors from yellow to red to purple. In fact, folks have started transplanting the Cameron County cactus to get these colors elsewhere!

Our time is up!

It’s hard to believe our three months are already finished here at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge.

We have had a wonderful time and hope to get back here next year. We really liked our job duties and working with the biologist. All the staff have been very nice.

Even though we didn’t get to spend a lot of time with the other volunteers, we enjoyed meeting everyone.

During our three months we donated 696 hours of our time. Tried out 21 new restaurants. Saw 3 life birds, Nilgai Antelope, and an ocelot.

Here are a few more favorite photos:


Roseatte Spoonbill


Black-necked Stilt


South Padre Island Beach


Mark on the jetty


Brown Pelican


Green Jay

This little Screech Owl roosts in the left side drain pipe over the visitor center:








Wild Turkey


Long-billed Curlew


Sunrise over the Laguna Madre

We’ll be home for a week or so then start heading to Colorado. We’ll have a few stops along the way to our next volunteer assignment which starts May 1.

Keep reading as we travel to Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge.

Lives of Birds:

We have been going out to the South Padre Island Birding Center every Saturday morning and have enjoyed watching the birds going about their lives. While it is fun to simply see and identify birds, we find it interesting to observe them feeding, preening, competing for territories, etc.

It is the time for male birds to establish their territories, and we observed these female (thanks Judy for the correction on gender!) Belted Kingfishers doing aerial battle over the birding center. They were waaaay up in the sky so these images aren't as clear as I would like. But some of the postures these guys achieved were amazing.
---Mark

The Best Fishermen on the Coast

Lots of people like to fish down here, but I am convinced that the best fishermen on the coast are Ospreys.

We see a lot of them, and they always seem to have a fish!!



And where there is something to eat you'll usually find a gull. In this picture you see an Osprey with a fish, a Ring-billed Gull is nearby to pick up the scraps, and two Ruddy Turnstones are there to pick up anything that the gull might miss.

All you can eat crab...

But you have to catch them yourselves!!




We find little Fiddler Crabs in damp areas all over the refuge and out at the South Padre Island Birding Center. The small (1") crabs are named for their single oversized claw which makes them look like they are carrying around a fiddle. Turns out that these tasty little morsels are favorites of the waders and shorebirds in the area. We watched this White Ibis capture, manipulate, and finally eat one crab after another. Yum !!
---Mark

Olive Sparrow

The Olive Sparrow's have been ping....ping....ping....pingpingpingpingping ponging here at the Refuge!