30 Years Of Fun

Today is our 30th Anniversary.

The picture below was taken in Rocky Mountain National Park at Mills Lake.  This is just one example of the amazing places that we have visited during our life together.

We look forward to many more years of traveling and volunteering together.  Compared to some of the volunteer couples we know we are just getting started!!

We Have Arrived

We arrived at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge on December 31.  The weather was hot - 76 and VERY humid.  We could either set up in the same site we had last year or try out a new site.  We chose a new site at the end of the row.  There are only two couples, besides us, that were here last year.  All the other volunteers will be new this year.  All the volunteer sites should be full soon.  I'll take a picture of our site when the sun comes out again.

Laguna Atascosa NWR is a 97,000 acre Refuge that was established in 1946.  It was originally purchased for the benefit of wintering waterfowl, primarily redhead ducks.  Approximately 80% of the redhead duck population winters in the lower Laguna Madre.

Redhead - photo taken last year

This refuge is home to more documented species of birds than any other National Wildlife Refuge in the United States.  Half of all the bird species found in the continental United States rest, feed, nest and or migrate here.

New Years day turned cold and rainy.  We drove the Bayside Drive which is a 15 mile one way loop that meanders along the Laguna Madre and returns through dense patches of thorny brush.  With the rain, wind and cold weather, we didn’t see a whole lot.

Originally we were to arrive on January 4th but we were asked to participate in the Christmas Bird Count on January 2nd.  The day of the CBC was cold and wet!  We were not able to drive into the section assigned to us because of the mud.  We ended up walking about 1 1/2 miles and only saw a hand full of birds, mostly Savannah Sparrows.  But, our great find of the day were two Aplomodo Falcons sitting in a Yucca.  

Aplomodo Falcon - photo taken last year

We’ll have orientation tomorrow, get new t-shirts, then officially start “working” next Tuesday.

Teri

A Shout-Out to All Our Blogger Friends

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Yolk's On Me

We are lucky to be able to get fresh, organic, eggs from some folks in Medina.  When I opened up the carton I noticed there was one egg that was a lot larger than the others.  These folks also have turkeys and I thought maybe we had gotten a turkey egg mixed in.  I boiled a few eggs to use in our salad and imagine my surprise when I sliced into this one.  I’ve never seen a double yolk before.  No wonder that egg was so big!

On the road again

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of our beautiful HitchHiker RV. 

We loaded up and headed out.  Our destination is Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge where we will be volunteering for the second year.  We will be there January 1 through the end of April. 

On the way to Laguna we are going to spend a couple of days at Choke Canyon State Park.  It’s a very nice park with big, easy to back into, sites.  We’ve stayed here several times. 

 Choke Canyon is located on the 26,000-acre Choke Canyon Reservoir, a water supply for Corpus Christi.  There are 40 RV sites and 20 screened shelters.  Only about 25 of the RV sites are occupied right now.  Our site backs up to the lake.

 The weather is pretty cool and cloudy but we are enjoying walking around.  We got into a really nice group of birds and in a few minutes saw:  Northern Cardinal, Green Jay, Osprey, Great Blue Heron, Least Sandpiper, Orange-crowned and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Golden-fronted and Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Savannah Sparrow, Northern Mockingbird, Greater Roadrunner, Black and Turkey Vultures, Great Egret, Killdeer, Ring-billed Gull, DC Cormorant, Long-billed Thrasher, Audubon’s Oriole, Wild Turkey, Northern Harrier. 

 Teri

Pedernales Falls Birds

The past two years we've volunteered at LBJ State Park for the months of October - December.  Nearby Pedernales State Park has some amazing bird blinds that offer excellent photo ops.  We didn't volunteer at LBJ this year but we did decide to stop by Pedernales one morning to see what was going on at the blinds.

The water feature was popular with the various finches:

Lesser Goldfinches and House Finches bathing

There were very few sparrows, but this Lincoln's Sparrow made an appearance:

Lincoln's Sparrow

Lot's of Northern Cardinals, and the Texas State Bird stopped by!

Northern Cardinal - male

Northern Mockingbird

On the small side, an Orange-crowned Warbler and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet posed long enough for pictures:

Orange-crowned Warbler

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

The larger White-winged Doves and Western Scrub Jays enjoyed the water feature.

White-winged Dove

Western Scrub Jay

The male Lesser Goldfinches were striking:

Lesser Goldfinch - male

But the best show had to be this male Northern Cardinal bathing in the lower pool of the water feature.  He must have been getting ready for Christmas!!

Get this side clean...

Now that side...

Done!!!

Mark

Tree Lighting

Our friends at LBJ State Park invited us to help out at the 43rd annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony.  We had a lot of fun last year and were looking forward to it.

There have been a few changes to the park since we were there last year.

New sign:

Mark had to have a little help from one of the staff:

Looking good!

Sauer-Beckman Farm:

One of my job duties was to take pictures during the evening for the park’s Facebook page.  Unfortunately, I didn’t remember to use my own camera for very many pictures.  You might check out the parks Facebook page for more photos.

Teri