Saturday's Parade

Saturday was a beautiful day for a parade, a three hour parade.

Click on photo to enlarge to see just a bit of the international parade.
The dresses were colorful, floats were colorful, music was colorful!
The Lion's club had chairs lined up on the street, 2 deep that you could rent for $3, by the time we got there at 11:45 they were all gone, but we prefer to stand to get photos anyway.
We felt we were in Mexico, it was just a couple of blocks away! (The bridge anyway.) Everyone around us speaking Spanish, the people on the floats singing and speaking in Spanish. Brownsville has been having Charro Days since 1934.
Candied apples, cotton candy, colas, water and other treats were peddled around for the crowd to enjoy.
The kids were all dressed up in colorful dresses and little suits, some adults too.
I had a good time, I think Ken enjoyed it too.
Tomorrow is going to be a perfect day for a boat ride!!

Is it spring yet?

It's been a warm and windy week at Hummingbird Cove, the temperatures averaging 84.

Plants are beginning to green up and the Spanish Dagger's are blooming even without any rain. The Prickly Poppies are blooming too.
I've been seeing how sharp the zoom is on my new camera. We've been going to Ramsey Nature park just about everyday to photograph birds. Ken has been taking jugs of water for them too, as the water is off to the bird's watering holes.

This Kiskadee was very cooperative by posing for several minutes.

I'd say the zoom works well, I just have to hold the camera still. Now to learn how to capture butterflies with it.

We have a busy week coming up, so I may post a couple of times this next week.

Until then have a good one.

Upgrade

I now have a new camera, a BD gift from Ken. It has a greater zoom then my point and shoot so now to see if I get better photos. I've only been out with it one day, but I think I'll take both cameras out next time to compare shots.We have been doing the Backyard Bird Count Friday and Saturday using Hummingbird Cove as my back yard.
Here's one of the birds counted today a Cooper's Hawk and photo taken with my new camera.
We have counted 45 species and 14 of those species at our feeder, I really thought we would have more but I think the Red Wing Blackbirds have taken over the park. We guesstimate 120 but that is probably low, there are 60 around our feeders in the morning.
It's been nice but very windy this week, did go over to SPI once, they are dredging sand again so there is a pipe all along the beach so didn't see many birds there. Also went to the Quilt show in McAllen I really wasn't impressed with the quilts, lots of interesting fabric though, I didn't really look closely as it was very crowded in the vendor booths.
That is about it from Hummingbird Cove.

Happy Valentine's Day

It's been a quiet week in Hummingbird Cove. We had two nights below freezing and a couple of nights near freezing but the forecast looks like spring is back this week with temps of 80 degrees.
This Mockingbird has been guarding our feeders for the past 3 days, it's been busy keeping the cowbirds, blackbirds, sparrows and the other birds from feeding the only bird it doesn't chase away has been the Green Jays. I wonder how long it will keep it up. This morning it has another mockingbird messing with him so some of the other birds have been able to feed. We put the hummingbird feeder back up but no hummers probably because of the mockingbird, the freeze burned all the flowers so the hummers need the sugar water. We have noticed their increase activity at the feeders in Ramsey park.

Squeekie says leave me alone I'm trying to watch the birds.

This week was our Audubon meeting and field trip for the month of Feb. The program for the meeting was given by Ruth Hoyt a local nature photographer. The field trip was to local birding spots in Laguna Vista, we split into 3 groups and each groups was to see how many different species it could spot. Our group won with 54 species.

Friday begins the Backyard Bird Count, Ken and I plan on counting the birds here at Hummingbird Cove, we're looking forward to that.

Have a Happy Valentine's Day!!!

'Tis Cupid come with loving art

To honor, worship and implore.

Frank Dempster Sherman

The Big Chill

The cold from the big winter storm made it to the RGV this week. Weds thru Fri the night temps got down to 27 degrees or lower, Thurs we had a freezing mist and that night it turned to a freezing drizzle so Friday morning we had an ice cover over everything. Some parts of the valley lost power, some lost water because of no power and bridges and roads closed as well as schools. They don't think they lost any citrus trees or fruit, anything not native was probably lost. Sad thing was plants and trees were beginning to bud and bloom again now gone!!
They closed many fishing areas because fish were dieing from the cold. Rescuers went out to save the sea turtles, they brought in 575 turtles found on the beaches or near the beach around Port Isabel and SPI. They do not know yet how many of those will make it, the article in the paper today said 20 had died.

Today was beautiful temp back in the 70's and skies blue, so we went to SPI's Kite Festival.

The winds were light and variable so many of the larger kites had a hard time flying, but we enjoyed them anyway and our visit with one of the flyer's who makes his own kites.

Here's our little Yellow throated Warbler that visits our feeder. During and since the storm we have Lark sparrows coming to our feeders, they are really pretty sparrows will try to get a photo.

Next week we have another cold front coming but not as cold as this weeks.

Hope your team wins the Super Bowl, I've been watching so far the commercials have not been that entertaining.

Til next time, have a good week.