Oops

Oops, I accidentally deleted this photo of our walk. The top photo is a cotton rat, next is spiny lizard, then spotted whiptail lizard, the pink snake like photo is a flower, then we have the different color blooms of the prickly pear.

We haven't been seeing many birds at Ramsey lately, leaf cover is thicker, some have migrated and others getting ready to nest. I did see a beautiful Ruby throated Hummingbird today another migrate on it's way north.

A warm week

It's been a warm and windy week here at Hummingbird Cove and at the Hawk Watch.

We still haven't seen many hawks or vultures, so to pass the time we've been studying up on a few new birds from this field guide.I think I may come up with a few birds of my own to make my own unusual bird field guide.

It looks fun!!!

It is onion harvest time, in fact Sat. is Onion Fest time in Wesleco it sounds like a good time with music, food, carnival and arts and crafts, but we aren't going.

I couldn't believe all the labor involved in harvesting the onions, there must have been 50 people in the field. It sure smelled good too.Thursday evening was Santa Ana's volunteer appreciation pot luck, we were invited to join the hawk watch group again this year. There are five us that are regular watchers and Dave Seal the fellow on the right is our leader. Santa Ana's volunteers worked hard this winter after the flood receded enough for them to clean up and rebuild paths. Some of the park is still flooded, where there used to be 3 ponds there is one lake.

Tuesday morning I decided to take Santa Ana's bird walk, we saw 2 Northern Beardless Tyrannulets, a little flycatcher that many birders come to the valley to find, so I felt lucky to see them. Later, I took Ken to the spot where we saw them and they weren't there, he'd sure like to get a photo of them, I couldn't they are too small and too flighty.

We see Scissortail Flycatchers everyday, so they are migrating back to Oklahoma.
Also on the bird walk we saw a Lousiana Waterthrush so they are migrating back to the states.

We took today off and visited Ramsey Nature Park and feed the birds.
The Prickly Pears are really starting to bloom.
We also spotted several lizards and a couple of water snakes.
There was a group of mothers with their small children enjoying a walk and they spotted the bobcat, it was just up the path from where we were sitting watching the birds, darn missed it again.
We haven't seen it for a long time. We hear it is the culprit that tears down the hummingbird feeder for the sweet water. The feeder was laying on the ground again today in pieces.



Til next time, have a great week.

Hawk Watch time

The 15th was the start of the Santa Ana's Hawk Watch which we like to help with, this is our 3rd year doing it. The watch/count is from 8 am to 1 pm everyday for a month, we don't go everyday but make it at least 4 days a week. Santa Ana is a 50 mile drive for us one way.

So far there have been very few hawks and very few migrating vultures which we count too.Thursday we took a walk around Ramsey park and took pictures of the flowers.
I sent off for these books using my BD gift card from Amazon.
Thank you Lara and Mike!!

I have been doing alot of reading this winter, not much on TV here, my reading has been from learning more about birds to who done it's and just plain fun reading.

Til next week, have a good one!! And enjoy the full moon, a super moon, closest to the earth in 20 years.

Letter from HBC

Dear friends and family.

What a sad week!!! The quake in Japan and the flooding in the NE, nature has been very harsh this year. It doesn't seem to end.

My week here started out with a computer virus which Ken took care of in only a day of working on it. I only lost my photoshop program, so we downloaded the editing program that came with my new Canon. It works OK, I'm learning how it works.

Friday evening Boo got sick stopped eating and threw up even after drinking water. So, we decided he had suffered enough and put him to sleep Saturday. We had been giving him two insulin shots a day for diabetes, he was very good about taking the shots. We estimate that he was 12 years, we had found him at the golf course when he was just a young cat.

At the Mardi Gras party Saturday evening, we learned our neighbors had to put down their sweet little old dog Saturday morning at the same vet we took Boo.

The owls have been around again, right next to us on the power poles. I tried to get a photo one morning but still too dark to get a good one. We had our best birding right around the park this week, we saw our first Grooved billed Ani for this season right at our dock and a White tailed Kite was sitting on the power line next to the club house.


We planned on going to the Brownsville Air Fiesta today, and when we read our Sunday paper this morning we saw the headline of the plane crash. Saturday afternoon the headliner aerobatic duo were badly burned in the crash.
We had purchased our tickets Friday so we went today with a sadness in our hearts. It was very windy so the smaller planes didn't fly, but it was a good show.

There was a good crowd and we enjoyed walking thru the larger military planes on display.

(Ops, mispelled fiesta) Hope you all a good week.

A Mexican saying for this week:

"Vanse los amores y quedan los dolores"

translation: When love is gone sorrow remains.

Our week

Tuesday was a perfect day for a boat trip, a lite breeze and temp in the mid 70's.

We were to meet at 11:30 for a noon trip up the Brownsville Ship Channel but something got messed up and that trip left at 11. The cruise people were really sorry about the mix up and we got a free Dolphin Watch trip that left at 1 pm. So instead of a 4 hour trip with dinner we had a 2 hour trip free. We didn't care and we got to see a few dolphins, stingray and puffer fish up close. Thursday we found some fields where the sugar cane was burned and being harvested so we watched for hawks.

There were a few but the Turkey Vultures out numbered them.
Saturday, Laguna Vista had their Bird Fest. They were to have a couple of bird walks, speakers and photo contest.
Would you believe we finally got rain and a good rain so the walks were canceled!

(Ken didn't enter the photo contest.) But we know the winning photographer, Kay, member of the Harlingen Audubon Society and writer of Arroyo Colorado blog.

Saturday evening we had some entertainment here at the park.

They were entertainers from Branson, doing their winter tour though Florida, Texas and Arizona.

They were very good!

(And yes, we did buy their CD's, they had a deal we couldn't pass up 3 for $20)

Many of the folks in our park have headed home or just to another place, so we didn't have a very big crowd.

Hope your week was a good one, more from the RGV next week.