Ground Nesters

Image from
Celebrate Urban Birds Project

Cornell Ornithology Lab

Article by Seth Inman

A few days ago Sharkey wrote about the mourning dove in her neighborhood.  Comments were made regarding the sloppy nest-building habits of the bird which got me to thinking about other birds I have observed whose nest building consisted of little more than scratching in the earth, if that.

The above picture of a killdeer with her eggs is a typical representation of a killdeer nest.  We had a pair of these birds directly across the road from our house for several years.  To their credit, the area in which they nested was surrounded by a six-foot chain link fence and experienced little traffic, human or otherwise. 

These birds usually pick a gravelly spot in which to place their eggs, for the camouflage of spotted shell blends nicely with pebbles.  Anyone who has observed these birds is familiar with the "drawing" activity and the "broken wing display" as the bird attempts to distract an interloper from the nest. 

The black skimmer is another bird that nests on the ground.  A few years ago we were privileged to spend part of an evening on a spit jutting into the Gulf at Rockport, Texas.  This area was inhabited by various shorebirds, but of most interest to us was the black skimmer.  I was lucky enough to snap a few shots that turned out rather well.

The birds lay their eggs on the ground, sand or bare earth, and some of the nests were practically in the road.  The creatures showed little concern for human company, perhaps skittering off a few feet but immediately returning to their posts after we passed.

Shapshots by vanilla,

Canon Sureshot A520

Rockport, April 2008

As We Leave Texas in the Rearview Mirror

 Leaving for an evening ride.

 Let's ride over to the point and see if the skimmers are nesting.

Lots of skimmers, but none on nest.  These birds will lay their eggs on the ground and hatch them there. We have seen nests virtually in the road.

The gull guards the ramparts while the sun sets.

Art in the park; or so they say.  You may call me "Crabby."

Making Memories in Paradise

 Our time here is quickly slipping away.  On a beautiful afternoon we took in a few of our favorite things.  BBBH would admit this is one of her favorite places.  I pretty much wait outside.

Our way home very often includes a ride down Water Street.  Beyond the little spit is one of the very long piers along the way.

This pretty yard exhibits some of the signs of Spring!

Back Home Again in the Blogosphere

As mysteriously as it disappeared, my blogger dashboard reappeared.  In spite of all my futile efforts to achieve recovery I had to work around the problem by utilizing Bob Warr's blog on which to post "String Too Short to Tie."  Now I find myself unable to access Bob's tools, but the Dashboard came back.  Bob Warr shows up on the dashboard, but none of the links are operative.

So here I am posting back home again on "String."

Oh, phooey.  Sometimes I just want to scream, stomp my feet and say, "I Quit!"

Okay, tantrum over; we'll see how long this lasts.

Those of you who are frequent readers know about my fascination with the live oaks in the area.  This little cluster of trees is visible from our front window.  The quality of the picture leaves a good bit to be desired, but I wanted to show you the trees anyway.  The trees look as though they have endured great agony, yet prevailed, as they clung tenaciously to life itself.  A cluster of such trees is called an oak motte.  How many trees does it take to make a motte?

Not yet home in the physical world.

Great Blue

The early morning walk around the park yielded only one picture, but I like it.

Winterize by Staying Clear of Winter

Where's vanilla?  Unlike Waldo, he sometimes hides in plain sight.  We left the Island mid-morning and made the first twenty miles homeward!  This is where we settled back in for an indeterminate period of time (though I am guessing not less than three weeks.) 

The deal is I have no intention of returning to Winter Wonderland.  I plan not to winterize the RV before October.  Once a year is quite enough.  In fact, I was talking with Chester Wednesday afternoon.  Chester is from Muncie, Indiana.  He has been here every time we've been here, and many more times as well.  He told me he bought his current RV, which is a gorgeous Class A, seven years ago and it has never been winterized!  How does he manage this? He leaves Indiana in October at latest, and preferably in September and will not arrive back in Muncie until May.  Now there's a plan.

This is an auspicious day for our friend Richard Prout.  It is his birthday.  The number is a multiple of ten.  He is older than I.  Happy birthday, Dick!

Dick and his wife, Heide, make it possible for us to stay away from winter, for they do stick with it. They take care of our mail and our plants, and look out for the property.   And while we appreciate all they do for us, we care more for the fact that they are good, kind, and loving friends.

Strolling Along

The story of the railroad in Rockport.

 That's right.  The sea is right over there.

 No tracks anywhere.

 Along the waterfront.

A little farther along. 

We are having a nice walk.

 A bit windy, but a great day on foot.

About here I said to BBBH, "Be sure to tell me when you've gone half as far as you can go."  Couple more blocks when I heard, "That's it!"

Gulls, Pelicans, and Shrimpers

 Scoot about, scout it out; check the country-side on your ride.

.From the wetland park, we traveled a bit farther north the next day to check out Fulton Beach. The pelicans like it.

Have you heard the story of the gull and the pelican?  The legend perhaps explains the behavior of the birds observed here.  In truth, you will often see gulls wherever you see pelicans.

A wonderful bird is the pelican, 

Its bill can hold more than its belican.

It can take in its beak,

Enough food for a week.

But I really don't know how the helican.*

 Our timing was excellent, for we came up to the docks just in time to watch the unloading of the days catch.  All those sacks being transferred to shore are loaded with shrimp.

 This fellow seems to have made a catch, as well.

The ride was longer, the activities different from those of the previous day.  Variety, they say...

*I don't know the author.  The verse has been in the lore more or less forever.  I learned it before I would have been allowed to say the last line at home.

Life in the Wetland

We boarded the scooter and left Cat behind.  Cat is the unofficial mascot of the park.  The official mascot is Peacock.  Have not yet photographed him.  Cat is quite friendly, will tolerate a belly rub.  She is surely not an elderly cat, for she has beautiful white teeth.

The destination on this particular day is a wildlife sanctuary/wetland preserve which is located right in town and along a very busy highway.  In fact, the entrance to the park is directly opposite the entrance to Wally World.  Can you spot Bird?  Well, he's not hiding.

This example of a very interesting grass is near the entrance to the boardwalk that goes out over the swamp.  It is called brushy sedge, or some such thing.  Memory isn't the first to go, either.

This photo lacks the clarity I desired, but I snapped it because of the giant "U" shaped vine.  Look just to the right of the upper left hand corner, then follow the swoop down to lower center of picture and back up to the tree on the right.

BBBH was fascinated by the vines.  She tugged on this one, but did not attempt to swing.

What?  You're back?

All in all, it was a very enjoyable excursion, the amount of walking was just about right, and we had  a visit with a pleasant couple from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Destination!

Snapped these pictures Saturday evening on the beach in Galveston.  Sunday morning we moved on down the road.  A leisurely drive, a great lunch at a nice seafood restaurant in Port Lavaca, then a few more minutes behind the wheel, put us in Rockport.  We are anchored and the intent is to be here for several weeks,

1501 miles behind us, a wonderful Texas winter ahead!

Accomplishment and Failure

It has been quite some time since I have treated you to an example of my inimitable artwork, so here you go. You are welcome. I will refer to this picture as I relate my experiences of a very hot and quite muggy afternoon.

BBBH had a couple of prescriptions at Wallyworld which needed to come home. She was at the pool leisurely enjoying the water. She was not impeding any lap swimmers, as she was the sole occupant of the pool. I thought, "Hmm. It is only about three miles to the store, the bicycle is in good shape, and if I take it easy, I will make it there and back with no problem." So I took off.

Cutting to the chase, I made it to the store and was on my way back. As I rode by the sports complex at the junior high school I observed a few soccer players at practice and a few tennis players working out on the courts. After I passed the court and as I approached the stoplight at the corner, I saw a tennis ball lying by the curb. "I shall do the youngsters a favor," thought I. So, retrieving the ball, lying at point A I determined in my mind that I would need to return to a point closer to the court in order to heave the ball over the fence. I moved to point B, and thus there was, say, 45 feet between me and the fence, plus the ten feet above the fence to be negotiated.
HEAVE! The ball hit the fence, bounced to the bleachers, bounced to the fire plug, and rolled back across the street to point C.

Now I am directly across the street, thirty-five feet from the fence. The ball hit the fence, rolled under the bleachers and back into the street. A very chastened and embarrassed old man strolled either chalantly or nonchalantly, I don't recall which, back to his bicycle and proceeded on his way home.

Dang!

Getting old does stuff.

Some I like (I get to live another day.) Some I don't (the old gray stud's not the stud he used to be. If he ever was.)

I made it home!

Readers of Bob Warr know why I didn't take the scooter.

Long Way Around

The day for the move from Edinburg to Rockport dawned cloudy and muggy, but hot. We arranged all the accouterments of peripatetic living into their travel-slots and hit the road.
However, since it had been two years since we saw Port Isabel, BBBH wanted to go over to that lovely venue. I told her I had seen on the TV only the night before the crush of traffic trying to get across the causeway, but somehow the message I hoped to deliver did not penetrate her consciousness, at least at the same level as I had received it.

So, shun piking (not literally in the old-fashioned sense, but my term for avoiding the expressways) we traveled several Texas Routes and FMs (Texas talk for "farm to market roads.") It was a very pleasant drive through cane fields and flat lands, probably at no point mounting a rise more than thirty feet above sea level. But when we turned from Laguna Vista onto Texas 100, the import of what I was trying to tell her impinged itself upon Beautiful's consciousness, for sure, because the traffic for the causeway was backed up all the way through Port Isabel and into Laguna Vista. She was the first to say, "Let's turn around and go to Rockport." Which we did. We arrived in Rockport safely after a pleasant drive north on US 77. No seriously frightening incidents, but I did conclude that there are two kinds of drivers on the highways these days that make for an interesting and riveting time behind the wheel. 1) The young, fearless, impatient idiotic drivers, and 2) the old, timidly dangerous idiotic drivers.

Thursday,

or, We Are About to Return to Real Time.

Our resting place in Galveston.

The breakers were very small, but the wind was blowing against them, creating interesting spray pattern.

I found humor in this setting.. Bigify to read sign

I read yesterday's article to BBBH. She said it wasn't funny, had no pizzazz. I did not know what to do about that, since I called it as I saw it. She said, Okay, it's your blog.

In Galveston, we stayed at Dellanera RV Park, which is located quite literally on the beach. We enjoyed the early part of the stay, as it is always a thrill for each of us to be on the ocean. Well, next to it, not on it. Late in the afternoon, though, the wind started to kick up and by nightfall the RV was rocking in the breeze. Breeze, that is, with gusts up to fifty miles an hour. Nevertheless, I slept well; BBBH not so much.

Thursday morning we started on down Galveston Island toward Freeport. While we did note some properties that had suffered damage from Hurricane Ike in 2008, most houses were either repaired, rebuilt, or razed. Overall, the strip looked normal and we were both amazed, once again, at the number of people who apparently have more money than they know what to do with, for these abodes are not fishing shacks, or even, as they are more likely known, "summer cottages." "Mansions" springs to mind.

Off the island and back on the mainland, we went through Freeport, Texas's number one least scenic area. From that point southward, the route is quite familiar to us, as we have taken it many times over the past few years. One stretch of Texas 521 is quite desolate, but the road is good, if narrow, and we made that part of the drive without incident. We connected with Texas 35 at Palacios where we stopped to make and consume lunch while enjoying the scenery of a commercial parking lot.

I enjoyed the drive across Lavaca Bay into Port Lavaca while Beautiful dozed. Somewhat later as we were crossing Copano Bay just above Rockport, she awakened in time to take in that bit of scenery. Minutes later we were "back home again" at Ancient Oaks RV Park where we will stay a week while some repairs are done, the laundry is done, and some sheer enjoyment of Coastal Texas takes place by Yours Truly.