Nature

-

Aren't you sometimes made speechless by the site of some glorious part of our natural world? Something that makes you stop in place while you utter something like "ohhh wow". Personally, we have had many of these moments, some small and some big during our lives. We had another big "moment" last night. 


One highlight here on High Island is the rookery located in the Smith Oaks Sanctuary. This sanctuary is 177 acres of fields, woods, wetlands, and ponds, and of course, the rookery. There's a great boardwalk trail to follow, that meets up with the woodland trails. We were advised to visit the rookery about an hour or so before sunset. And when we walked up to the first viewing platform, well, you guessed it. It was an "oh wow" moment! 








The rookery is located on an island in the middle of Claybottom Pond. It's a well-used location for roosting and nesting for thousands of waterbirds in spring and summer, including herons, egrets, cormorants, and spoonbills. There are a total of five viewing platforms, all giving fantastic views of the rookery. 

We had great looks at great and snowy egrets, great blue, little blue and tri-colored herons, and roseate spoonbills.

Beautiful roseate spoonbills!

Tri-colored heron

Tri-colored heron

Lots of cormorants



The activity is non-stop on the island. Thousands of birds...copulation, fighting, building nests, flying back and forth...it's all happening there! 

Snowy egret collecting nesting material.

                                   And away!

This spot was something to marvel at! Life cycles of our natural world! Forgive my cellphone photos; they don't do justice to the real thing!

Saturday the 10th, we head back towards Livingston to visit friends, get the kitties to the vets for their annual check-ups, etc. etc. We'll share our visits to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, Boy Scout Woods, and Bolivar Peninsular with you this weekend along with birds we were able to find throughout the week.

Behind the mask is a happy birder!









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Finally Dispersed Camping!

-
Image
Most of you I'm sure are aware of the major ice and snow storm that hit Texas last week. We're so thankful that we made it through without too much trouble, compared to much of the state. Our propane tank set-up froze so we were without heat for a couple of days, plus our water pump froze leaving us with no water. But then the sun came out and thawed out everything! Even the prediction of 4" plus of snow didn't materialize. Photo of our neighbor's motorhome at Escapees RV Park in Livingston TX. We had spent 5 weeks at Escapees, learning more about our new travel trailer, and getting things out away. We had our annual physicals with our doctor here and caught up on other odds and ends.  We took a ride to RV Station in Cleveland (TX) for repair of the bathroom leak under the sink. We bought our trailer from this company, but in Katy, which is further away. The Cleveland dealership service department found the leak and replaced a gasket which has fixed the problem. Ho
Read more

Looking for Spring Migrants

-
Image
      Greetings from High Island along the Gulf coast in Texas. We arrived to this very small campground Saturday, April 3, set up, and decided to sit out with a cup of coffee until it got too cool. While hanging out, a woman with the local Methodist church came by with lots of leftover desserts from a bbq earlier today and offered them up to us campers. Yay!  We ate chocolate and banana cream pie for a late lunch! Today, Easter Sunday, we drove over to Boy Scout Woods, a migrant hotspot for the island.  We purchased our patches for entry into the various sanctuaries here. We were told that birding was slow this morning, so we decided to venture off the island for lunch and to bird at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.  Lots of great birds as we drove route 124 to the refuge. Once we arrived to the entrance to Anahuac, we turned the car off, and it wouldn't start again. This has been a frequent problem lately, so we are carrying an extra battery in the truck to charge the battery un
Read more

Curve Balls

-
Image
Hello dear friends.  We have resurfaced. After arriving in Livingston, Texas to the Escapees RV Campground in May, our nomadic lifestyle came to an abrupt halt. My arthritic left knee which has been a literal pain for a couple of years decided to push the pain up to a limit that was getting difficult to tolerate. I couldn't walk very far and overall I felt frustrated.   I finally visited an orthopedic surgeon for an exam and on June 24 I had knee replacement surgery. Above our newest rescue Miss Benny keeps me company during recuperation. Another cat, you ask!?! A little bit more about this in a minute 😸! Short story about surgery, I developed a blood clot in my calf and have been on a blood thinner since. I began physical therapy a month after surgery. Usually you start this torture within a few days after surgery. I never got started that soon, and this is admittedly a dropping of the ball by the surgeon's office. PT is not pleasant 😜! My problem, though, is that I can'
Read more