Blue Goose ~ Day 217

December 30, 2014 ~ Harlingen, TX to Port Lavaca, TX

I was up and at the Firestone place at 7:00. Joe, the manager there, kept calling me "Miss Barbara." While waiting, I looked through a magazine on Texas State Parks and read that "One of the highlights of my career was when a lady birder from Vermont saw a thalarope here for the first time." [underlining mine]. I also read how $35 million in mitigation money from the Deep Horizon oil spill were used to buy the Powderhorn Ranch, 17,000 acres of coastal prairie. BP and Transocean created a $2.5 billion fund for mitigation.

Four new tires, $700 and two hours later, I was headed north to the Brooks County Rest Stop, just south of Falfurrias. On the way, I drove by La Sal del Rey another piece of the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR, a "hypersaline lake," ten times saltier than the ocean, historically mined for salt and now home to wintering and migratory birds.

DHC and I had stopped and birded the Brooks Rest Stop last April, looking specifically for the Painted Redstart, a gorgeous bird which inexplicably had chosen this particular spot in which to winter. (We were about a week too late.) However, it returned here again this winter, and was spotted in late September. It isn't supposed to be in the US at all in the winter. Cornell describes it as "a warbler of surpassing beauty."

The rest stop is 1/4 mile long with huge oaks, a small pond, a prominent "Watch For Snakes" sign, restrooms and picnic tables. My bird-finding instincts, along with eBird postings as to where the bird is most often seen, helped my search as within 10 minutes I saw it and saw it well, even though it flitted about like a typical warbler. It WAS stunning! with a red belly, black head and back, and large white wing patches. It also has a bold white crescent (half an eye-ring) on the lower half of the eye, very noticeable and adding to its striking appearance. I'll think of it as my "$700 bird."

And then I totally put my van back together and organized it (sort of) before going to Aransas NWR on the Gulf. Most of the refuges, as I've said before, surprise me...are different from what I expect. I'd been at Aransas before though and thought I knew what I would find, but it was another surprise as I expected this would be one of the busier places I've visited lately, and it wasn't at all.

First, the VC was closed. I drove to the impressive observation tower where there were six other people. The whole refuge seemed in sleep mode...quiet, drab winter colors, chilly. There were no visible Whooping Cranes and only a few Redheads and Pintails in the gulf along an egret or heron here and there. The other birds of note were Black Vultures, several always flying overhead, and at the tower, two perched on the railings....patiently waiting for something to die. They ignored the humans passing within a couple of feet.

The road to Aransas passed through very flat land, mostly fields, with occasional cattle. It is the wintering ground of "the only wild flock of whooping cranes." There is a fascinating book titled, The Man Who Saved the Whooping Crane: The Robert Porter Allen Story by Kathleen Kaska for anyone wishing to know more about these magnificent cranes. There were only 15 Whooping Cranes alive in the 1940s, so their recovery is truly an amazing story. Or one can read about the Operation Migration project:

WWW.OPERATIONMIGRATION.ORG
Operation Migration has played a lead role in the reintroduction of endangered Whooping cranes into eastern North America since 2001. In the 1940s the species was reduced to just 15 birds. Using ultralight aircraft, Operation Migration pilots act as surrogate parents and guide captive-hatched and imprinted Whooping cranes along a planned migration route beginning in Wisconsin and ending in Florida...

I stayed in Port Lavaca and am starting to wonder if the sun is going to shine any time soon....

Saltwater Marsh from observation tower at Port Aransas NWR - TX