Wheeling through Paradise

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 s

  A very un-birdy day.  Around our campsite, grackles, more grackles, and even more grackles! A mockingbird now and again and a Carolina wren late today. Okay, they'll be more birds at Boy Scout Woods. Uh, no.  We weren't the only visitors looking at the flyers! Look closely! Michael and I decided to go our own ways and meet up a little later. It's been ages since I had a solitary walk in the woods and i realize how much I have missed that. But, here's what I saw: a black vulture and a turkey vulture. Not one woodland bird!!! I did see a cardinal at one of the water "drips" set up to attract birds. Apparently, no birds were thirsty today other than that lone cardinal.  We decided to go to the Smith Oaks Sanctuary to walk the canopy boardwalk and also sit and watch the heron rookery.  That didn't happen. The truck died again twice as we hobbled our way back to the campground. Michael set up a trickle charger so hopefully we will be able to get around tomorr

      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