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.

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.