22 March 10 – 28 March 10

Another one of those Texas things you wouldn't notice if you were not a northerner. Almost every bridge you cross has a warning sign – Bridge may be icy when cold. I mean from the smallest to the largest will have a sign.

We had one day of rain last week. I did one of Pastor Fred's tricks – I went and weeded the flower bed in front of the Baptist Church where we have been attending. It is less than ½ mile down the road so while Miriam shopped for Easter clothes I had her drop me off and I pulled weeds. It was drizzling a fine mist as I walked back. I also was busted but no one said anything today – hopefully the lady didn't say anything. They are having three days of Evangelistic services starting Sunday evening. If this man's messages are anything like his message this morning it will be time well spent. He is doing a Church plant in Las Vegas, NV, but went to school with the Pastor here.

We did our normal sightseeing trips as well as our birdwatching trips this week. On Saturday we went back to one of the places we have been in the past to watch bird banding. What a sight to see some of those birds up close and personal. Miriam even had the opportunity to hold a hummer and have it take off from her hand. We are still not seeing any great numbers of birds migrating yet, but they will come I'm sure. I could give you five bird pictures, but our daughter Ann has been complaining about all I ever use are bird pictures. So this week I will start with something new.

Miriam made the comment the other day about looking at pictures of birds in books. “When you see some of the colors of the birds it is hard to believe they are that bright and vividl colored.” After seeing some of the birds we have seen – it IS possible. Another thing is the size - after holding something that hardly feels like it weighs anything – yet it flies thousand of miles every year and lives for years and makes the trip twice a year – hummers are still pretty.

Did see some buffalo while we were at one of the NWR we visited. We are going to do a little back tracking when we leave here. There is an Attwater Prairie Chicken Festival about a hundred miles from here and we are going back to be closer. It is also after we were going to be moving from here anyway. They take you out in a van and leave you in a blind and if you are lucky you see them doing their mating dance. The numbers have dwindled greatly in the past hundred years from around a million down to a few hundred at this NWR.

Pictures:
Owl – awake in the day time
Lupine – what a blue flower
Flowering tree – spring does come
Miriam's hand and Ruby Throat – they are the only ones in Ohio
Yellow Crowned Night Heron

Are we still in Texas?

15 March 10 – 21 March 10

After being here a full week and going a number of different places we have it all down. We have been on 'This Way' and 'That Way' and crossed 'Little Country Road' all in the same week. The first two I wasn't sure I was reading correctly, but the third one the sign just went past and I didn't even think about it.

With two days of rain in the week we did not see all the places we want to yet. We will try again this next week if it only rains one day. That is the forecast today. This is NOT Ohio where you can just wait a couple of hours and it will change, but the weather people here are not any better than there. We are still not seeing many birds, but have started to see some warblers. They are the start of the big influx is what I have heard.

It is amazing to drive and see the amount of damage still left after hurricane Ike two years ago. The NWR's along the coast are almost denuded of trees, but a lot of the native grasses are coming back. You can walk, like we did on Matagorda, and find chairs and table parts and anything that would blow up and down the coast. Some of the debris is miles inland in places. Then you had the house that was discovered blown away by Ike this last week. Nature can have its fury. One of the comments made about the house was: “I'm sure the Insurance company will want to move the homeowner back in and get their money back.”

One of the places we went this past week even had a feeder out for the birds. No having to look for a living there. As always – every good feeder attracts the nemesis of all bird feeding people – the squirrel. We also saw and heard our first Meadowlark on one trip. During one journey we drove right by a Kill Deer sitting on three eggs. They are no different here than Ohio in that she was 2-3 feet from the tire track. She did get up as I passed – it was the only thing that caught my eye. I backed up and did get a picture of her standing guard on her eggs.

We had 38 as the overnight low last night. Be prepared because it will be coming your way. After a couple of days getting back at 5:00 to 6:00 PM and the RV being 80+ this morning was a real shock to the system.

Pictures:
Cattle Egret – not car or camera shy
White Ibis
White-faced Ibis
Squirrel – Larry – tell Paul I can add to his heart collection
Common Yellow Throat – what a bright bird

Is this STILL Texas?

9 March 10 – 14 March 10

Thanks Pat.

Happy pi day to everyone.

This was a move week again for the Chambers house. We went from Port O'Connor to League City, TX. Just 150 miles up the coast. We are going to be here for a month and try to get a few loose ends caught up. The car has needed service for 3500 miles, but the dealer was 3-4 hours one way. We are also lagging to let the spring bird migration catch up.

We have had a couple of trips already while here. We even had one trip for Ray's fetish – Ghirardelli chocolate. Not all the Sam's in TX let alone Houston carry it – but I found it.

We have an Audubon run 5-6k acre refuge about 15 minutes so we can get a little bit in even on a short day. Our first longer trip was to Anahuac – you all know how I like to find those names nobody can pronounce. I couldn't either. It was one of the 6 places to go within 50 miles of Houston. About an hour to get there then we have a problem getting to the car. All those cows were going down the road. It was kind of interesting to see how you move more than three or four at a time. How many men on horses and/or in trucks does it take to move 100 – 150 cows with their calves. For all you non-farmers the truck on the far right is in-coming. The next one left of that is also in-coming. The trailer is loaded with calves – not all of them had to walk. When a bawling calf starts mom tries to get where he is so it becomes easy to make them follow. There were still nine or ten on horseback either leading or keeping everyone going in the right direction. I could not get a picture of the cows going around the car, but take my word for it. They did. There also was a trailer following with two or three horses as spares. The refuge at Anahuac was pretty well destroyed by hurricane Ike in '08. A lot of trees are what I called heat until this year.

City life is NOT our thing. Everywhere you have to go here takes a trip on one or another Interstate. Today after church Miriam thought it would be interesting to go see what Galveston was like. Anybody know the problem with that? I know you haven't had your Spring Break yet, but IT IS Spring Break week for a whole lot of places. We drove over to the East end to see how hard it was to get to the Ferry. It isn't bad getting there, but we were glad we didn't want to go today. They have at least four ferries running on the 20 minute FREE trip across the bay. I counted 50 cars, 1 semi, and 4 motorcycles get off of one. The traffic waiting was three ferries full before you were on the road to get to the staging area. The traffic was backed up for over a mile from there. It is free though. We will take the trip one way or the other as it is a different way to get to Anahuac.

What is Houston famous for? NASA, and we are in the area where it is located. We were coming back from a ride after going to listen to an archeologist talk about some of the things found in the area. Just getting educated. You are never to old to learn something new. We had been warned by the fellow who took us out to Matagorda Island, retired from NASA after 30 years, never to be on the Interstate around NASA Rd 1 between 6-9 AM and 3-6PM, but we didn't think that meant Saturday as well. It does. Do you know what a moving parking lot looks like. We were in it for about five miles. NASA Rd 1 is the next exit north from the one we use.

For everyone in the family – I found a picture you will all get a laugh from. Just driving down the road in Chambers County TX and had to turn around and go back for the picture. Yes, I know it's a grammar school, but Miriam will attest to the fact that I am still NOT grown up. There is some kid in all of us, I just have more of it.

One of the things I forgot to write for the last couple of weeks while you were buried in snow. People down here have started mowing their yards. We saw the first mower out about the 25th of February.

π (sometimes written pi) is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius. It is approximately equal to --->3.14<---(today) 1593 in the usual decimal notation The constant is also known as Archimedes Constant, although this name is rather uncommon in modern, western, English-speaking contexts. Many formulae from mathematics, science, and engineering involve π, which is one of the most important mathematical and physical constants. Yes I can spell and the PUN was intended. Copied for Wikipedia.

Pictures:
Cormorants put to flight – how many does it take to make the sky black? 400 – 500 there.
Cedar Waxwings – yes spring is coming.
Turtle – I gave alligators a plug – this is alligator food. How's my camo?
Cows – pretty obvious – it was where the road was green.
School – what can you say?

Matagorda Island

1 March 10 – 8 March 10

The Matagorda Island trip is in the books as they say. What a trip we had on Friday – you know the old adage – clear and beautiful – well we didn't have the clear part – it was cloudy and breezy all day, but it was a wonderful day. That is if you call losing your hat and lens cover in the Inter Coastal(IC) Waterway a good day. Both were retrieved and the hat was worn while we walked the Island. After some cleaning, the IC is salty, the lens cap also works. That is more than Alan, our son, can say about his lens cap because he did not find his, but mine floated.

We were not on the water two or three minutes before we say the Osprey having breakfast. It only got better from there – with 10 Whooping Cranes over about a fifteen minute ride on the water. The same travel on the road is about 25 – 30 minutes because of no direct route. We then came back up the IC and started out in the Bay – NOT the Gulf. It is hard to keep track of what the water is when there are three different names and not the same place. The IC is along the shore – mostly channels dredged to facilitate barge and freight traffic. The Bay is outside the IC but inside the barrier islands, Matagorda is a barrier island. Then you have the Gulf outside that. The fellow who was giving us the tour said the IC goes from Brownsville, TX up to ME around FL.

Once we were in the Bay we say a number of different water fowl. At one point we saw more than 200-300 White Pelicans and then a little farther along 300-500 Cormorants. A number of Dolphin, no good pictures, were seen in different places. The best picture I have is the fin or tail on one and the back of another one. When we arrived at the Island we took off our shoes and waded ashore.

We landed on a beach on the Bay side where the Island is only 300 to 400 yards across to the Gulf side. The Island is jointly owned by the government and the state. It is 38 miles long and we crossed in the narrowest place with the maximum width 4.5 miles. After walking across we went up the beach – you could call us beachcombers, about two miles. Miriam came back with a number of shells and sand dollars. Nothing in the way of value was found, but our granddaughters will love the shells. Ann, DO NOT kill the messenger.

We did a number of other short day jaunts this week, but the trip to the Island will be a memory never forgotten.

Pictures:
Osprey – breakfast looked a little under cooked
Caspian Tern – notice the difference in wing span from the Forster
Loon – putting on a show
Pelicans and Cormorants
Whooping Cranes – the one with a dirty head is last years chick

Snow Geese

23 February 10 – 1 March 10

RERUN - It seems my 'Buffalo Soldiers' question has been misinterpreted. So let me clear up all the controversy I have stated - 'Buffalo Soldiers were black – were given the name by the Indians ---NO not the Cleveland Indians. The question is WHY were they called 'Buffalo Soldiers'?

They were given the name because the Indians thought the soldiers hair looked like the hair/fur on the head of a buffalo, hence 'Buffalo Soldier'. This came from reading the different picture verbiage at Fort Huachuca. So much for history. I'll try not to put any more questions in, but if I do they will be spelled out very precisely. I did NOT hear from anyone with an answer, let alone a correct one. My son-in-law, Tom did have Ann tell me the Indians gave them the name.

We traveled to a number of places to see wildlife as well as revisited Aransas NWR to see Whooping Cranes. We could see them with a spotting scope but it was still hard to tell what they were. Hopefully our trip to Matagorda Island this coming weekend will put us much closer to them. The person taking us out said: “You should have been here last year. You could get within 40 – 50 feet of them as there was not a lot of feeding places.” We saw more Armadillos as well as a begging Raccoon while we were eating lunch.

Another of our trips took use on a wild goose chase. We ended up almost a hundred miles from home with another sixty to go when we called a halt. We did see a pretty town that was the county seat with a beautiful old Courthouse built in 1890. On another day we went to a small town to see an old mission that was interesting. I even let Miriam walk through the center of town, but kept her out of the touristy places.

Any time you are out on the back roads you see a number of different hawks. We have taken to counting hawks on our trips to or from Port Lavaca across one twelve mile stretch of road. The count can be from six to a dozen or more. It is a challenge at times to make progress down the road, yet there comes a time to put the camera down and just look. Coming back from Aransas on one of our trips we saw a great number of American Kestrels, commonly know as Sparrow Hawk because of their diet. They migrate and we have seen them in Ohio in a limited number. Just so I do NOT start a question session – the Turkey Vultures aka buzzards return to Hinckley, Ohio on the 15 of March. Beware the Ides of March – et tu Brute for you Shakespeare fans. That was also Miriam's father's birthday. If the Vultures are still in Port O'Connor will they make it to Ohio? NO, it's not follow the Blue car either. There are two types of Vultures here, Black and Turkey, and only the Turkey Vultures migrate.

The picture of the Snow Geese in flight was taken on the road from Port Lavaca. What an awesome sight to see that many birds in the air and also hear the calling going on back and forth between different small bunches within the big group.

We have made our reservations for the next move and will be going to League City outside of Houston. We will stay there a month as the start of migration will be in full swing and there are number of places to go. One trip, if we can get there will be to see the Prairie Chickens on their mating grounds.

Pictures:
Red Shouldered Hawk
Snow Geese
Black Vultures - it took a while to get used to two kinds
Black Skimmers – they lower their bill and fish
Forster Terns – they dive to fish – fun to watch – there was 20 – 30 diving