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Borrego Springs, CA

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Houston, the Good Luck Duck has landed!

What do a Good Luck Duck, a Christmas Bird Count (CBC), a web migration, and a crawdad house have in common?  They’re all things that appeared or happened today, and the topics of this post. 

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ROXANNE AND ANNIE, of The Good Luck Duck blog, pulled into the RV pads this afternoon.  It turns out spending a couple of nights at the pads works out in their plans to visit a friend on the Bolivar Peninsula, and I’m always happy to offer a spot to fellow bloggers.  We had a good time getting to know each other in person before the temps dropped, and the sun set.  Tomorrow, if it isn’t too rainy, we’ll do a tour of the refuge.

_MG_5120I was up way before the crack of dawn this morning to get ready for the annual Christmas Bird Count here on the refuge.  This Wilson’s snipe is one of the birds we saw during the count.  I took this picture yesterday during some showers.  I like how the rain just beads up on the birds back.  If you were a boy scout in your youth, you may have gone on a snipe hunt.  I’m here to tell you that there really is such a bird.  Smile

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On the two road sections that I was assigned to survey, my friend Diana and I counted 9200 birds.  Of course 8500 of those birds were all Northern shovelers on one of the rice field ponds, but the other 700 included three long-billed curlews and a couple of loggerhead shrikes.  Two of the best sightings for us today were an immature bald eagle and a Say’s phoebe. 

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After I finished the count, and Roxanne and Annie had arrived, we noticed a spider web migration occurring.  It’s something I’ve never seen before.  Long strands of spider web like material come floating through the air.  The strand pictured here was about four feet long.  These strands were floating on the wind well above our heads.  I had the door of the rig open in the afternoon, and a number of these strands flew into the screen.  Anybody know anything about this?

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And last, but not least, I found these crawdad mounds behind the rig.  Because of the drought, I haven’t seen any of these this year until today.  Must have been the rain we had yesterday.  The crawdads create these mud and clay marbles and push them up in a stack above their abode.  The two I found were only three or four inches tall.  When it’s wetter, these mounds can be as much as 10-12” high. 

Well, that’s about it for today from the refuge.  I’ve decided to head for Mississippi a week from today.  I’m providing the ham for our Christmas dinner here, and Emma has a spa appointment for next Tuesday.  I’m ready to move on down the road.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

26 comments:

  1. I hope we can visit you some day! That sure is one BIG motor home those gals have. Did Emma get to see any of the cats?

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  2. What are crawdads?
    I had lots of muddawber homes under my motorhome and in the fridge area outside, they are long since gone/dead tho (especially now that it is -5c).
    Nice to see a visit from the Duck! I follow them too and they are hilarious!

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  3. George Stoltz said...

    I was the Boy Scout on a snipe hunt who was holding the burlap bag in the Indiana Sand Dunes when I was all of 11 or 12 and believed everything the scoutmaster told us. After the hunt, we had a huge bonfire and were instructed to speak this chant with an ever increasing tempo and out of this chant would arise a moment of truth.

    Never forgot the evening and still enjoy the memory.

    Oh-Wa-Tah-Nass-I-Am

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  4. I just read several of your recent posts, what great pictures, I can't believe I was not already a follower, but I am now. Thanks for sharing all those pictures.

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  5. What great pictures of all the birds and ducks! Glad they have all arrived safely at the refuge!

    Sherry
    www.directionofourdreams.blogspot.com

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  6. Merry Christmas to you and Emma.

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  7. So??? Why do the crawdads do that? And only when it rains? to get the wet out of their houses?

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  8. The length of some of the bird's bills never cease to amaze me! I am assuming they are ground feeders? Love the shot of the water drops on the back. Thanks much...

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  9. You know if I read your blog long enough you might actually make a nature lover out of this city girl. :)

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  10. have fun with the 'good luck duck girls'!!!..another blogger meet and greet that will be wonderful!!

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  11. Love the water on the birds back.
    Never saw the webs like that before.

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  12. Them strands were baby spiders parachuting away from mom. We had the same thing here a couple of weeks ago.

    On one of the field trips in my Master Naturalist course, we got to watch a moma spider climb to the very tip of a tall plant. They her hoard of children parachuted away. Very cool.

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  13. Did ya teach those girls how to pronounce Anna-whack? I'll bet they are calling it Anna'quack instead! When I lived in Galveston county, we had those crawfish things all over the place. When it would rain & the ditches would fill up, kids would go gather the crawfish! I don't really see them here being 70 miles inland.

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  14. Your header photo reminds me of a Chinese rice paper design. Nice:)))

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  15. The birding sounds excellent, even with all of the plovers. Turning slightly green with envy here.

    Be safe and be well.

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  16. Oops - make that shovelers, not plovers.

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  17. Ah yes, we see lots of crawdad (crawfish) mounds when in the area. Really hoping we can get together when we hit Moss Point, MS around the 26th of Jan.

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  18. i use to do a CBC in grimes and brazos county years ago... may have to participate in another one some day soon...

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  19. I guess I just assumed you were staying put for the winter, safe travels!

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  20. What a great day bird counting and lucky to also see the Good Luck Ducks... what fun!
    Have fun, Travel safe & Merry Christmas
    Donna

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  21. How in the world do you count birds especially that many. Can't believe they would all line up and go 1, 2, 3.
    Grew up in the country, brother got kicked off bus for getting crawdads out of creek and throwing them on a couple of girls...boys !

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  22. Hi Judy! I just saw you walk past with Emma, so now I have to go get dressed so you don't know I'm still in 'jammies.

    It's so nice here, and quiet! Judy even staged a dramatic storm, of which we had a completely unimpeded view. It scared the down off me! Well-played, Judy, well-played!

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  23. Ducks on the pads, huh? Glad they became part of the "bird count" there. Merry Christmas to you.

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  24. Reading your blog is like attending a Botany class...You feel like you are in school and LOVING IT for a change...Crawdads mud huts and migrating Spider webs...I'll be go to Hell...fascinating.

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  25. Interesting. I did not know there really are snipes.

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