Hawk Watch

The Hawk Watch or count began today at Santa Ana WLR.

This morning there were more counters than birds to count, but it was fun to visit with everyone and see where and what the other birders had seen on their winter stay.

I was also entertained by watching several Scissor-tailed Flycatchers and a Solitary Sandpiper.The watch will continue every day 8 to 1 until April 15th, we won't be there everyday but will go watch several times.
Bees, flowers well if you have flowers you have to have bees and they are everywhere.
Rain is forecast for tomorrow so it will be a good day to run our errands.
Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

Looking for Parrots

Today we joined the Audubon field trip to Bownsville to look for the parrots and parakeets, there were 27 of us caravaning down and around town.

We found these two green parakeets on the grounds U of Brownsville.What a beautiful campus, right down town Brownsville.

We saw 6 more green parakeets and that was all for the parakeets and parrots. They kept a record of the birds we saw and we saw about 45 species today.
We stopped at Ramsey on the way home, feed the birds and walked around and saw several purple martins and a couple of them checked out a house we cleaned a couple of weeks ago. I thought that was rather cool to see them stop by. One little sparrow poked his head out and seemed to say I hope they don't move in.

We've been disappointed on the number of birds seen at various places we've gone to lately, we seem to always end up saying to ourselves we see more at Ramsey and why did we waste the gas on going there.

Like today we saw the purple martins and lesser goldfinch's in the few minutes we walked the park.

Warmer weather

The sun poked out between the clouds today so the temp was near 80, warm enough for the lizards to come out, a few more butterflies to fly about and more birds were singing.It's time to trade the jeans for Capri's and long sleeves for short also to apply the mosquito spray heavily.
The lupines have started to bloom, I think it's Spring in Texas!
If you are interested in learning more about where we are wintering I found a wonderful blog, she takes beautiful photos and really knows her birds please visit http://www.arroyocoloradoriverblog.blogspot.com/.

Walking in Ramsey Park

We took a walk this morning after filling the feeders at Ramsey Park.

We usually do as it is a pleasant place to walk and listen to the birds but now there is an added pleasure, the smells of all the blossoming trees and bushes.

How, sweet it is!!Each time we go we find more flowering plants.

I need to find a book to help me ID them.

Soon the prickly pear cactus will add their blooms to the rainbow of flowers.

Birdfest

We got up early this morning to go on a guided Birding Tour which was the first program so to speak of the Laguna Vista's 4th Annual Birdfest. It turned out to be visiting the barkyards of 3 homes in the South Padre Island Golf Estates and the ponds around the golf course.
This is a birding corner the residents built over looking a pond, there was a Spotted Sandpiper spotted here.

The backyards were beautiful, the only birds at the feeders were blackbirds and each home had coffee and fresh baked goodies for us birders. Two of the owners were artists and had their work on display for sale.

These are Whistling ducks, they love golf courses, they are funny little birds.

We listened to 3 nature talks and looked at the various displays brought by the birding centers and photos in the photo contest. Time to call it a day, I couldn't stay awake on the drive home this afternoon but have gotten my second wind now to do a little blogging.

Have a nice weekend!

Here and there

Here's our four cats, I thought I'd take the opportunity to get a photo of them together, they usually aren't together as the girls really don't get along.This is our bag we take to Ramsey to feed the birds, Ken also has a big container of seed in the car. I make up the hummingbird water, Ken makes up suet that's what is in the peanut butter container, he mixes up lard, peanut butter, corn meal, oatmeal, and bird seed then he spreads it around on the tree branches etc.
Here's Ken and some bird watchers at the area in Ramsey Park where we feed the birds.

This is the main feeder in the area, there also is a little pond, two hummingbird feeders and Ken has put up one of his drilled out logs which he puts his suet in. I share my morning grapefruit with the birds, I eat half they get the other half.

We go in to feed them almost every day, Ramsey Park is in Harlingen.

Thursday we went to Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge, Ken had some hawk booklets that the Missouri Conservationist puts out to give to the leader of the Hawk Watch. The Hawk Watch begins the 15th of this month, we will help with the watch again this year for a couple of days.

We walked around a bit too, didn't see too many birds.

Cloudy today, Ken is working on his taxes, I'm watching the red wing blackbirds at our feeder occasionally another bird will show up. He expects to get his new computer next week that will be nice he has alot photos to download and photoshop.

Back to Jetty

Ken wanted to get a photo of the Ruddy Turnstones so we went back to SPI because he didn't take his camera out yesterday and wouldn't you know it the surf was up and the turnstones weren't there.The surf was good for the surfers, I guess.
Our lady who shells was there, so Ken showed her a photo of one of the shells he picked up yesterday to see what it was.
We also went over to the birding boardwalk and it is now pay only, several other people were there and were disappointed too that the Convention Center gate was now locked.


But it was another beautiful day to be at the beach.