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We retraced our route and headed back to Corpus Christi and then further east to Goose Island, a state park which is situated directly across a bay from Port Aransas, the small town where we began our Gulf Coast adventures in January.

Goose Island is the winter home to Whooping Cranes, who summer near the Arctic Circle,  and the cranes are one of the reasons that people come to this area.  The park provided 3 docent-led bird walks, which we attended.  Fog was a pretty constant part of the day there, but we did manage to see all kinds of  birds.

Goose Island is  home to The Big Tree, a 1,000+ year old oak tree that has somehow survived natural and man-made disasters and is still in pretty good shape.

On our last bird walk we were privileged to witness what must have been a feeding frenzy of some kind.  A small body of water had one of the highest concentrations of bird species in one area that we have seen.  We watched in awe as we tried to pick out all the birds,  and then just as quickly as the birds gathered they all flew or swam away.  Whooping Cranes even joined in the group.  In the first picture a crane is in the back right corner and it gives you some perspective of the size of these birds.  Later we saw a family of cranes flying over us. A group of three cranes includes last year’s baby which has not been sent off on its own yet.

We signed up for a Whooping Crane boat expedition which took us to the edge of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, a  crane wintering area. The day started out with the usual heavy fog, really heavy fog.

We drove around for about 3 hours and finally the fog lifted enough to for us to find Whoopers, and one pair gave us a rare treat.  The cranes mate in April after they have migrated north, but one couple decided to start practicing the mating dance a bit early and put on a nice show for us.  The 3 hours of foggy wandering was worth it!

Of course, there were other interesting birds to look at that day, like the Long-billed Curlew:

Back at Goose Island, the pelicans lined up for handouts at the fish cleaning station:

Oysters are a big business on Goose Island, and the empty shells are saved all year in huge piles around town. In the spring, the shells are bagged and placed in the water to create a good environment for new oysters to mature.

Turkey buzzards soaring overhead are quite a  common sight, and although it is not nice to pass judgement,  the turkey buzzard has to be one of the non-prettiest birds around! This one was wet from the fog, which did not improve its looks.

And then it was time to keep moving on, to Galveston.  Before we started traveling around Texas, we did not realize that Galveston was an island, and quite a popular island as it turned out.  We arrived before spring break, when the traffic was not too heavy and we could easily get around town.  We left a couple days after spring break started and it was quite a different place.

Our first stop on the island was the Elissa, a restored iron barque (3 mast)  ship built in 1878 in Aberdeen, Scotland and used as a merchant marine vessel for almost 100 years.  The ship stopped in Galveston twice during that time, and once brought bananas from South America into port. We watched the people doing maintenance on the ship’s masts with a bit of awe.

Next stop was a duck boat tour of Galveston where we were able to see some nice homes in town and on the water.

We also visited the Rain Forest pavilion, where birds and monkeys roamed free while the bats and other critters were more contained.

Galveston was our last chance to visit the beaches of the Texas Gulf Coast.  We stayed on the west end of the island, in an RV park which was across the street from the beach and where the colorful houses were built on stilts to stay above flood waters.  The nice beaches were less crowded and there were always birds to enjoy.

On March 11, after more than 2 months on or near the Gulf Coast, we made a hard left turn and headed for Houston.

Harlingen, Texas, is the home of the original plaster model  used to create the Iwo Jima War Memorial which is on display at Arlington Cemetery. The plaster has been treated to withstand the weather and the dry Texas climate is ideal for it.  The model is in a small park that also houses an Iwo Jima museum. The statue is huge and the details are very impressive.

We visited two more birding centers during our stay in Los Fresnos and these are a few of our favorite birds:

Gail’s favorite, the Spoonbill and a Crested Caracara:

The flashy little Vermilion Flycatcher and the Anhinga:

Yellow-throated Warbler and Yellow-crowned Night Heron:

We visited the site of the last battle of the Civil War, Palmito Ranch.  It is now a quiet farm field with some story boards to explain the battle.  The battle was fought more than a month after the end of the Civil War, and there are several theories as to why the Union general chose to attack when he knew that Lee had surrendered. There were more than 100 unnecessary casualties and the Confederate army won the battle.

Our last day in Los Fresnos was February 25; it was time to start heading north again.  We wanted to cram in as much as we could so we visited a small beach close to the Mexican border that we had not been to before.  On the return drive, we went through an immigration checkpoint and one of the officials told us about a nearby sanctuary that was known for its birds.  We decided to check it out and we are so glad we did.  The bird watching was pretty minimal but the area was wonderful.

Sabal Palm Sanctuary is a former plantation on the banks of the Rio Grande.  The Queen Anne style home, built in 1892, is well preserved.  The grounds are nicely maintained and there are trails through the palm trees to the Rio Grande.  Hanging moss and thick undergrowth line the trails and it is like stepping back in time. Sabal Palms are the only palm trees which are native to Texas.

The last place we visited that day was Oliveira Park in Brownsville, which is a roosting spot for a flock of wild parrots.  The parrots come in at dusk and make such racket! The park is used by neighborhood kids for all kinds of activities and the sounds of kids playing  sports and parrots calling to each other filled the warm night air.

short parrots

Click the link to hear a short clip of the noisy parrots. It might take a bit to load the clip on your system.

The day was a perfect end to our stay in south Texas.

More to come as we head north.

Los Fresnos became our most southward RV site and we stopped there because of its central location to many interesting areas to visit.  Two important battlefields are located nearby as well as South Padre Island and several major birding areas.

Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Park is the site of a May 8, 1846 conflict between the United States and Mexico. This was the first major battle in the dispute that soon turned into the Mexican-American war, fought over where the border between the two countries should be drawn.  There is a museum and a paved path around the battleground.

But, of course, we found interesting birds to photograph while there.

We went to South Padre Island several times and found it to be nothing like the north end of the island. The south end is a populated town and a big tourist area, and we are so glad we got to experience the north end with its miles of uninhabited beach.

There are lots of birds to watch in the South Padre Island Birding Center, which has a boardwalk out to the edge of the ocean: (Black-necked Stilt below)

We have seen Coots all over, but did not know what their feet looked like until we saw them walking on land.  The Coots and Gallinule get our vote for ‘Most Interesting Bird Feet’:

Black-bellied Whistling Duck and Green Heron:

White Ibis and, Gail’s favorite, Roseate Spoonbill

Next door to the Birding Center is Sea Turtle Inc, an organization that rescues sea turtles in distress and returns them to the ocean, if possible.  Some turtles have injuries that do not allow them to be released, and those guys get big tanks to live in.  Some turtles have even been fitted with prosthetic flippers so that they can swim again.

South Padre Island also has a Sandcastle Trail.  The visitor center has  outdoor and indoor  sandcastles on display to start the trail and then various business around town have created their own sandcastles.

We did walk on the beach a couple of times ….can’t pass up a beach.  On our last beach walk on South Padre, we met a WWII pilot and his wife, in their 90’s, taking their daily stroll.  Pretty amazing to get to talk to them.  We also found several Portuguese man o’ war washed up on this beach.  They are beautiful,  but very toxic.

We visited Brownsville several times and enjoyed visiting the Historic Brownsville Museum, housed in a 1920’s Spanish-colonial train depot:

More to follow.

The coast of Texas is sheltered by barrier islands, and Padre Island is the longest island at 113 miles.  The sand is hard packed and easily navigable by foot, bicycle or vehicle, which means you can drive for miles at the edge of the gulf.  We heard about an area 25 miles south of where we were parked, where the currents bring in lots of shells.  The area was called, appropriately,  Little Shell Beach and Big Shell Beach and was a fun place to visit.  About this same time,  we discovered that another couple from Montana (the first MT folks we had seen in Texas) was parked near us.  We decided to take our two vehicles to find shells. We timed our trip so that the tide was out mid-day and the weather was nice, and off we went.

This is why we took two vehicles:

It was a gorgeous day and the beach did have a few soft spots and some beached logs to navigate around, but it was a great day for an adventure. After a few miles we were the only people on the beach.

The beach area this far south is not maintained and so we found all kinds of interesting debris.

At around 25 miles, we started to notice we were driving on a crunchy surface and that told us we had arrived at our spot.  The area was amazing; the beach was pretty much covered with layers of small shells and pieces of polished shells.

We did find some Big Shells as well.

Bruce flew the drone to capture some nice shots.

We stayed a few hours, picked up shells, ate our lunches and then headed back.  On the way back,  the tide was already coming in and we had to drive through water in a couple of spots.  Time to end our adventure!

The end of January brought to an end our stay on Padre Island and we moved into Corpus Christi to take care of the necessary things in life.  Tom and Kathy (our new MT friends) joined us for a tour of the USS Lexington:

We also had a great day at South Texas Botanical Gardens, where we got to see gorgeous flowers and feed and meet all kinds of resident parrots:

We  got to pet their resident iguana, who loves to have his sides scratched.

A chance conversation with a local biologist, who told us that more of the  tropical birds  could be found further south, determined where we headed next.  South we went!

First stop was Arroyo City, where we parked along Arroyo Colorado. Tom and Kathy followed and we enjoyed several pleasant evenings sitting outside on our lawn chairs and watching the fireflies around us. The Arroyo was used as a shipping channel and a fishing area so there was always something to watch.

We were parked a few miles outside of Laguna Atascosa Wildlife Refuge and we visited there for several days. We hiked some of the trails, took their guided tram tour and thoroughly enjoyed the blind at the bird feeding station.  It is there that we first saw Green Jays, Altamira Orioles, Groove-billed Anis and so many more colorful birds.  Cardinals also became a part of our time in the south, they are very plentiful and stay mostly hidden, but have a distinctive call that we came to instantly recognize when we heard it.

Male and female Cardinals, Long-billed Thrasher and a Green Jay are the last 4 pictures.

We also saw alligators and one that was having a bird for lunch

The thick brush is full of birds and that has drawn in bobcats and  rare ocelots, who make their home there as well.  We were lucky enough to spot a bobcat walking on the same path we were on during one of our hikes.

Kathy and Tom headed to Montana at this point, but we stayed here a bit longer and then headed even further south on the Gulf.

More to follow.

Some of the Port Aransas bird areas are still under reconstruction, but we were able to enjoy several of the smaller walks.

Beach activities became our every day life and the sunsets and sunrises were awesome.

After a week in Port Aransas, we decided to go Total Beach, and so we moved a few miles east to Padre Island National Seashore. Here we lived on solar power and woke up and went to sleep to the sounds of the ocean.

Beach walks (and picking up trash)  and bird watching were the only tasks we had all day! Great Blue Herons, which are a rarity in Montana, became our every day companions.

Bruce was able to use his drone to get  some high altitude pictures.

Ghost crabs, in all sizes,  were a source on entertainment and there were so many of them scurrying around at times that it looked like part of the beach itself was moving.

We even performed a rattlesnake rescue on the beach.  A large trash container had been emptied and when it was put back, it landed on a rattlesnake.  We came upon the trapped snake and were able to lift the container enough that the snake was able to wiggle out.  Not sure if he said thanks, but his tail was wagging a bit.

We did have to abandon the beach one night and camp at the visitor center parking lot when a big storm came in.  The storm pushed the tide up to the sand dunes and under our coach.  It washed out some of our leveling blocks and we had to move mats, equipment and the car to higher ground.  We stuck it out one night but then moved the next day, along with most everyone else on the beach.

More to come.

We were looking for a warm spot to spend the winter and ended up with so much more. First of all, Texas is HUGE! No surprise there.  We came into the state at the far northwest corner on November 10, 2018, at El Paso.  We went to several museums in the area, but the most colorful and fun place to visit was the ‘Sugar House’, one man’s 30 year project to build a beautiful home for his wife (he used painted cement).

Next stop was Hueco Tanks State Park, where rock depressions capture rainwater that has been used as a watering stop through the centuries and where we found peccaries roaming, instead of deer and buffalo.

Traveling eastward, we had a beautiful fall hike on a trail in Guadalupe Mountains National Park,  that took us to an old cabin in McKittrick Canyon.

Next stop for us was Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, which will be in another post.  We headed north a bit to Roswell and then spent Thanksgiving at a wonderful little state park, Bottomless Lakes.  It is here that perhaps the ‘birding bug’ started to bite us when we got to watch a little bird called a Least Bittern hunt along a creek bank.

After Thanksgiving, it was time to move south again and we found a wonderful spot to camp near Monahans at the Sandhills State Park.  We loved the park, camping amidst the sand dunes, but did not think much of the surrounding area – all oil well related and you could smell petroleum in the air.

We took several barefoot walks in all that sand, which stretched for miles.

And then it was further south, to the wonderful Big Bend National Park, which will have to be in another post.  We stayed in tiny Terlingua, just outside the park, and that town is built around  the adobe ruins of an old mining town. Some houses have incorporated an adobe ruin into their new house.

At the very southeast edge of Big Bend we did get to cross the Rio Grande, via rowboat, and visit a little Mexican village,  Boquillas,  where we had a nice lunch and Gail rode a donkey for the first time.

Christmas was spent in Von Ormy, TX, in a little park outside of town.  Not much there but did have some great hiking trails along a river bottom.  We shared potluck supper with fellow RV’ers.

New Year’s Eve in San Antonio won the ‘Noisiest New Year’s Eve EVER’ award.  Between the fireworks and the gunfire, it sounded like we were in the middle of a battlefield. But, there was a nice sunset. We spent December 31st touring the Alamo site.

Now we headed straight to the coast, to Port Aransas, a small town southeast of Corpus Christi,  that is being rebuilt after being severely damaged by Hurricane Harvey in August, 2017.  We stayed at a nice park aptly name ‘On The Beach’ where we were just steps away from a lovely beach.  Our home is the first RV you see in the picture, which was taken from the beach.

Sandcastle building was sometimes intricate and sometimes just pails of sand dumped on top of each other.

We also found that bird watching is a big deal on the Gulf Coast,  and there were probably a dozen birding sites in the small area of Port Aransas.  And so we got the bug:

More to follow!