Blue Goose ~ Day 216

December 29, 2014 ~ South Padre Island, TX to Harlingen, TX

For once, the motel was busy in the breakfast room; all the tables were full with animated conversations. The skies were overcast but it wasn't raining.

Long-billed Curlew - World Birding Center - South Padre Island - TX

I went to The World Birding Center and walked a mile on the boardwalks, seeing a Long-billed Curlew and watched a secretive Clapper Rail, Little Blue and Tricolored Herons all moving at the same time through the marsh grasses in one area. The rail stayed low; the herons would  sometimes jump on top of the matted reeds. Common Gallinules were all over, as were Coots and grackles. I heard Soras and saw one dozing Black-crowned Night-heron and a small group of barely awake Roseate Spoonbills, a Belted Kingfisher, Great Blue Herons....a small alligator, Eurasian Collared and White-tipped Doves, a Red-breasted Merganser and, as I left, four White Ibises flew over the marsh. There were ducks and pelicans in the bay.

Roseate Spoonbills - SPI - TX

The beach was full of puddles but not birds. I wasn't disappointed as I would have had to decide whether to take the heavy bulky van out on the sand, which didn't look all that driveable today. It was nothing like those glorious mornings and evenings last April with thousands of gulls and sandpipers, egrets and plovers, but it was also the middle of the day.

Since I was headed to Laguna Atascosa, I kept my eye on the tall structures for "The Falcon" in this area - the Aplomado. I didn't see any but remembered the successful chase last spring. The couple I met at Estero Llano yesterday talked about the "worst road in the world" - the Old Port Isabel Road. This is where I got out of the car to throw nail-studded 2 x 4s out of the way so DHC could drive on; it was also the road with foot-deep hardened mud ruts. I always read warnings about the caliche - the mud - on these roads when it is wet and had no intention of trying with the van, especially since my MUD experience yesterday.

On the road to Laguna I got in the middle of a group of six cars (birders from Oklahoma) moving slowly along, stopping for hawks. They apologized when we met at the VC about holding me up and I thanked them for my temporary inclusion. An 18-year-old noticed my bumper sticker (Take a Kid Birding) and we talked about young birders. He wondered whom I knew in Michigan that he might have met at a birding camp in Arizona. He has gone twice and told me he saw the Elegant Trogon the second year "for three seconds." I love seeing these kids out birding with their incredibly sharp eyes and quick minds.

A weasel kept poking its face out of a hole near the VC and a javelina rummaged under the feeders.

Weasel at Laguna Atascosa NWR - TX

There were the usual Alligator Warning signs as I walked the short trails through the trees and brush near the headquarters, and then I drove to the bay, seeing a couple of Couch's Kingbirds and a mix of ducks on the water. Lately, there is a ratio of ten Kestrels to every other raptor sighting. Laguna's main 15- mile loop is closed indefinitely to protect Ocelots which were getting killed by vehicles. The noisiest common birds down here are the Great-tailed Grackles, which are everywhere there are people.

As I left Laguna, heading west, I heard a "pop" but nothing appeared out of order, and I continued on very pot-holed roads for the next 20 miles before my tire warning light came on. I stopped, checked and my right rear tire was slowly deflating. After a few bad words, I figured I was only a few miles from the small town of Rio Hondo and slowly continued there, pulling into a gas station. In 15 minutes, the tire was totally flat.

After ten phone calls back and forth between  road service and the person sent from Brownsville to fix the tire, he (Mario) arrived. What was weird is that the automated road service calls / progress checks were subsequently from Ontario, Arizona and Texas. The estimated times for service changed from 40 minutes to 90 minutes with the actual arrival only 30 minutes. And then, with help from the Internet, Mario and I finally figured how to access the spare. Of course, my van is loaded with stuff, and this process all took awhile. But then, once he figured it out, he used his own handmade tool to get to the spare instead of the "long rod" that comes with the van, which takes 10 times as long as Mario's handy little invention. After that, it only took him five minutes to put the spare on (which was also flat, so that needed air before I could drive on.)

At first I was dismayed because the gas station closed at 8 p.m., and I didn't want to spend the night in an empty parking lot in this little town. The house next door had a fenced enclosure with lots of puppies and cats, milling about, including an occasional cat on the roof of the house. Rio Hondo probably didn't have a motel. But, this was needless worry, as I was good to go before dark and drove to Harlingen, 15 miles down the road. I had called the Firestone place there which was open until 7, got there at 6, but decided to come back in the morning. The extremely pleasant and sweet woman directing the work flow agreed this would be a better option as the wait was at least an hour.

I found a motel, picked at leftovers, read and half-watched a cop show set in New Orleans...gritty and brutal work. Murders. Detective work. Hot-tempered total losers.