Barack Obama recognized me today!

No, I wasn’t in Tucson or Washington DC, but right here, as usual, at Anahuac NWR.  At noon, refuge staff and fellow volunteers met at a local restaurant for my farewell lunch.  I thought that the best part of this luncheon was going to be that I didn’t have to pay for my lunch.  :)  I was wrong, though.  After we finished eating, Stephanie got up to officially thank me for my work here this year.

Since I’m in between thousand hour milestones with the National Wildlife Refuge system,  I only expected a card and a thank you.  But there was more;  a nice insulated stainless steel mug for my ice water, and…

a letter, pin, and certificate from the President of the United States of America!   I have been awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award.  I thank you, Mr. President, on behalf of all of us volunteers out here on the road, for recognizing the importance of what we try to do.

 

I am very proud of my almost 3,500 volunteer hours with the National Wildlife Refuges of my country.  I’ve had various accomplishments in my life, but this one ranks right up there near the top, and has a place very close to my heart.  I’m thinking I may even wear that pin on my pj’s tonight!  :)  Hoowah!!

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

Another day in the life…

Egad!  It was 23* when I took Emma for her first outs this morning and the north wind was blowing.  Much to my chagrin, she thought the brisk wind and crunchy turf were invigorating, and took her sweet time going about her business.  :(   Wouldn’t you think a short haired dog would have more sense than that?  Nope!  She ran around in circles on her long lead and fairly made me dizzy.  Eventually, we went back inside and I got ready for the bird count.

 

Fellow volunteer, Marilyn, and I headed out at 8:30 for our appointed rounds.  We about froze our fingers off walking the transect at the first stop.  The marsh was wet, but frozen.  The little killdeer and yellow legs were walking around on the ice looking for something to eat.  No ducks to be seen.  They were probably off to more sheltered grounds.  That was one chilly bird count this morning!

 

This afternoon, I needed to make the ten mile drive into the main part of the refuge to gas up the refuge vehicle before the weekend.  Since I was there, I took a ride down all the refuge roads for probably the last time.  After four volunteer stints here, I’m really not planning on returning, but you just never know.

As I drove down the entrance road, I noticed smoke from another fire.  This time it wasn’t the burning of rice fields or pastures, but the burning of debris piles still left from hurricane Ike.  You just can’t imagine the massive amounts of debris left from a hurricane unless you’ve seen it.  That raised shed, on the right, is one of many that was constructed to oversee the removal of all the debris.  Last year, big dump trucks hauled huge mounds of stuff away every day.  Now, they’re burning what is left.  I think it’s been over two years since that hurricane, and that gives you an idea of how long it takes to clean up from such devastation.

As I made my way around Shoveler Pond, this great blue heron decided to pose for me.  That beak is sure a formidable weapon, and this bird is an expert at freezing in place until an unsuspecting fish or frog moves past.  Then that beak moves with lightening speed to grab some tasty morsel.  I’ve enjoyed many a moment watching these herons work at getting a large fish, head first, down to their gullet.  

A Virginia rail also made an appearance today.  See how it has puffed out it’s feathers to keep warm?  You know it’s a chilly day when they don’t live up to being ‘as thin as a rail’!

 

Lastly, I need to vent a little rant on what some people do on our public lands.  Yesterday, Marilyn was working the VIS, and needed to visit the restrooms that are located across from the VIS.  As she entered the restroom, she found that someone had taken a crap in the hand washing sink!  Can you believe it?  There are two stools located there, so why would someone do this?  And guess who had to clean it up?  The volunteer!  I just don’t understand.  What a disgusting thing to do!  I know what I’d like to do to the person who did this.  What is this world coming to?  Ugh!

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

The Birds and the Bugs

Today was bird survey day, and fellow volunteer, Marilyn, was supposed to go along with me to learn the ropes.  She will be taking over the survey when I leave.  However, she forgot about it, so I headed out on my own.  It seems the birds had decided to use other areas to visit today, so it was a pretty dismal count.  You just never know what you’re going to find on these surveys.

 

After lunch, I headed out to try to find and photograph the remaining species on my list for Stephanie.  She had added a mourning dove to the list; a common species.  But try as I might, I couldn’t find one mourning dove to photograph today.

I did find a ruby-crowned kinglet, however.  Those of you that are birders know that this little mighty mite never sits still for more than a second!  It’s a challenge to photograph because as soon as you get it in your sites, it flits off somewhere else.  It was pretty warm today, so it was busy catching bugs on the wing. (you can probably guess the most abundant bug:))

No otters; no bobcats; and no mourning doves were to be seen, but plenty of white-fronted geese, great blue herons, killdeer, white-tailed kites, neo-tropical cormorants, greater yellowlegs, and snowy egrets were found. 

There were even herds of illiterate cows around.  :)  Guess they just ignored the sign…

Remember when I posted this picture of an unknown insect a couple of days ago that was sent to me by my friend, Jack?  Well, he took the advice of one of my commenters, CYNDI, and sent the pic to WHATS THAT BUG.  Turns out it is a type of walking stick that can accurately shoot a sort of venom out of it’s legs and right into your eye!  Mind you, Jack took this photo while laying prone on the ground!  Not sure he would have done it if he had known about that venom stuff, but he is a kind of wild and crazy guy.  :)  Anyway, after submitting the photo, it has been named the Bug of the Month!  Ha Ha!  Who would have guessed??  Jack will now be known as Bug Man Jack to me from this day forward!

 

I’m thinking I may submit a picture I took last May to WHATS THAT BUG to give Jack a little competition.  After all, who wouldn’t want Bug of the Month on their resume?

                                                                     THE END!

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

Two old ‘coots’ go a birding

Dorothy and Bob have been volunteering here on the refuge since I left on my cruise at the beginning of November, but Dorothy has spent her entire time working in the VIS.  She has heard me talk about what I see when I do my bird surveys on Wednesdays, and wished she could see some of the more remote areas of the refuge.  Since we both have Mondays off, I asked if she would like to take a ride with me back into the East Unit. 
I told her to bring her camera and have it ready for some great opportunities.  I think I’ve gotten some pretty good pictures while I’m doing the surveys.  Ha!  Pride goeth before a fall, they say.  We headed out this morning as soon as the frost melted off the windshield, and headed for stop number one that always has hundreds of waterfowl on the flooded moist soil unit.  Guess what?  There was not even one duck on the water.  Dang those birds for having wings!  :)
As I looked in the ditch beside the vehicle, I saw this male mallard.  That was the only duck we saw at this stop.  :(

We then headed to one of my favorite spots on the refuge.  I think it’s called rail marsh, but we certainly weren’t going to see any rails today as the wind was really blowing and the entire marsh was engulfed in smoke.  I later found out it was from a fire in Louisiana.  How disappointing.
About all we could make out were these American coots.  We felt right at home.  :)  On a side note, could anyone tell me how to ensure that when you click on one of these pictures that it actually enlarges?  Each time I try clicking on a picture in one of my posts, I get the same sized picture, just in a separate frame.  This would be a good pic to click on to get a larger version to fully appreciate  how these coots seem to run across the water.

I asked Dorothy if she was game to help me search out the other route I had been told about to reach those 3 survey spots that I haven’t been able to get to for the last two weeks.  She was all for it, so we went to try to find the road.  All I was told was to take the third gate west of the East Unit main entrance.  We scoped out both the third gate and the fourth gate, and neither of them were in a condition that I felt comfortable driving down.  We could both imagine getting stuck in them with no way to turn around.  So much for that idea!

Later in the afternoon, Emma and I drove to the VIS to see if I could get a picture of one of the two bobcats that seem to be in that area.
We took a quick trip around Shoveler Pond while waiting for the construction workers to leave the VIS area, but didn’t see much.  There was a pair of blue-winged teal floating by, and one rather sickly snow goose.  My guess is that this goose was probably injured during the hunt yesterday and is just hunkering down trying to recuperate.  Good luck to you, old goose.

Overcast skies rolled in, and there was just too much commotion around the VIS, so we headed back to the rig without seeing any bobcats.  Maybe tomorrow, I’ll go look for periwinkle snails.  At least they can’t fly away.  :)

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

A ghost from Christmas Past??

I was up at the community building this morning about nine to get the ham into the oven for our volunteer Christmas Dinner.  The community building is located a ways behind the RV pads, and has a front room, full kitchen, shower, and laundry room for the use of the volunteers, interns, and occasional Friends of the Refuge meetings.  It is not open to the general public.  Have I told you that the RV pads are rather isolated as well? 

 

Anyway, as I was taking the plastic wrapper off of the ham, the door opened, and a crusty older gentleman entered the building.  His first words to me were “How come you don’t have the TV on?”  Well, hello, who are you?  Turns out he wanted to know if Glenn or Sonny were around.  Glen was a volunteer that was here for the last several winters, and Sonny was the ranger that ran the hunter’s check station last year; both a couple of ‘good old boys.’  Neither of them are here this year. 

 

As I worked away at stripping off the layer of skin from the ham, he regaled me with tales of how he would bring the boys some flounder and teach them how to filet the fish.  The conversation turned to Hurricane Ike, and how he was one of the few that sat out the storm in the nearby community of High Island.  There was a mandatory evacuation of the whole area, but he refused to leave.  When the police came to make him evacuate, he and a bunch of his cronies were ready for them, and stood their ground in his driveway with shotguns loaded!  As he tells it, the police backed down and he stayed. 

 

He asked me if he could have the ham trimmings to fry up for his hunting dog, Beau (I’m surprised it wasn’t named Bubba :)).  I said sure thing, and he wrapped them up in the plastic from the outside of the ham and was gone as suddenly as he appeared.  Funny thing is, I was here last year, and don’t recall this gentleman ever showing up…especially on Christmas Day.  Hmmm…

As I went back up to the building shortly before noon, two of the other volunteers had erected a small Christmas tree to make our meal more festive.

That’s Dorothy and Bob in the front, and Fonda and Denny in the back.  As usual, there was more food than we could possibly consume, and it was all delicious.  I especially enjoyed the raisin gravy, of course.  It’s only on a group occasion like this that I get a chance to make it.  :)

And in the surrounding fields, the cattle were lowing (or bawling) on this very blustery cold Christmas Day.  One of those young ones even found a way out of the fenced field and went high tailing it down FM 1985!  That was when I was back at the rig, and Emma went berserk!  She could see it out the side window.  Next thing, it’s mother was in hot pursuit down the inside of the fence line.  As they disappeared from sight, I hoped the young one found a way back into the field.

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

Christmas Bird Count 2010

While some dyed in the wool birders were on the refuge searching for owls at four in the morning, I languished in bed until six.  :)  I’m all for the birds, but I’ve just reached that stage in my life where tromping through the marsh at that time in the morning just doesn’t thrill me any longer.

I met up with the group at the VIS a little later, and was assigned three other people to take along with me.  One woman even brought her poodle with her.  What’s up with that?  I like dogs, but this wasn’t the time or place to have a canine companion along in my opinion.  The pooch was pretty well behaved, and only barked when we left it in the car to do some of our counting.  Luckily, the birds were far enough away that the barking didn’t effect them.  The reason the owner put him in the Suburban is that he was walking in the cow pies.  I haven’t checked the back seat to see if I’ll be cleaning off cow pie paw prints tomorrow.  :(
Since I was the leader of our small group, today was not a day for taking pictures.  Two out of the three were pretty much beginning birders.  That’s not a bad thing.  They were able to point out some birds to me, they just didn’t know what they were.  However, I just couldn’t pass up a chance to try to get a shot of a bald eagle.  These were the only two shots I took all day.  This guy didn’t stay around to pose!  I could tell by the white head and tail that this was not one of the three eagles I saw last week.  So, there have been at least 4 bald eagles on the refuge in the past week.  That’s not very common.

With the areas I was assigned to count, we tallied over 12,000 snow geese, our most abundant bird for the count.  It was a pretty good birding day overall.  It remained overcast all day with surprisingly calm winds and temps in the 70’s and high humidity.  Of course, calm winds meant that there were probably more mosquitoes in the car than there were geese on the refuge!  :)  I didn’t have much skin showing, but the little buggers found every square inch that was available.  Can you say itchy and lumpy?  I guess I’ll just suffer in the name of science.  :)

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

18 more hours done!

                                  THE EVAPORATING POND BEHIND THE TEMPORARY VIS

 

The amount of hours that I have to put in each week on the refuge, is a yearly good natured debate that Stephanie, the volunteer coordinator, and I have.  She wants me to put in 32 hours/week, and I think it should be 24 hrs/week.  To me, 32 hours is practically a fulltime job, and I’m retired!  The 32 hours for solos seems to be very common along the Texas coast and at many Arizona refuges.  At just about all of the other refuges I’ve volunteered at, I’ve only been required to put in 17-24 hours.  So, some weeks I put in 32 hours and some weeks I don’t.  There are  various arguments to support either position that I won’t go into here.  :)

Anyway, this weekend I put in two nine hour days working the VIS.  That’s a pretty good chunk out of my weekly quota!  This is not the busiest time of the year for refuge visitors, so I was happy to see this young Cooper’s hawk alight in a nearby dead tree yesterday.  He stopped for an afternoon preening session.

A little while later, this orange-crowned warbler (L), and a common yellowthroat (R) bubbled  through the semi live oak trees across the road.  I was anxious for my stint to be done because I knew that JOHN AND BRENDA would be arriving at the RV pads in the afternoon from Louisiana.  When I was done with work, we met, and I enjoyed a delicious lasagna meal that Brenda had prepared, and a great evening of conversation.  As others have said, meeting people in the RV lifestyle or from the RV blogland community is like meeting old friends. 

 

We were so busy chit chatting, that I didn’t even get any pictures.  I tried this morning before I headed in for work, but Brenda declined being seen on the blog in her PJs (:)), and John, and their dog Meg, somehow disappeared off of the highway as I tried to catch them on my way into the VIS.  Oh well, maybe we’ll meet again some time down the road.

 

For some reason, I didn’t sleep very well last night so today really dragged by.  I was happy to be done.

You know who was also happy I was finished with work after being cooped up in the rig for two days in a row!  After a good walk around the compound, it was play time…

Until a red-tailed hawk had the audacity to fly overhead and land at the top of an electrical pole!  I guess Emma thought it was a turkey vulture.  :)  She seldom barks, but when she does she puts her whole being into it!  Do you think she knows that if you are going to do something, you should do it well?  :)  Such expressive antics she goes through.

Tonight’s moon rise and sunset…

I’m supposed to have the next two days off, but with the Christmas Bird Count on Wednesday, and my normal bird surveys on Thursday, it seems to me I’m going to have to take some time to scope out the new way to get to the survey areas before then.  (was that a run on sentence, or just a very long one?)  Hmmm, looks like a 32 hour work week to me.  :)

                                                                          THE END!!

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

A postponement

In last night’s post, I stated that I would post the first part of my top ten adventures in 2010 tonight.  Well, that just isn’t going to happen, people.  :)  It was a long work day for me today, and as AL suggested today in his post, it is best to be mentally awake when you’re composing for your blog.  So, I think it will be a few days before I can put those posts together.

In the meantime, I’ll just ramble on a bit about today.  It was bird survey day, and I was ready!  When I arrived at the first count location, I was shocked to see that the road in front of me had disappeared!  In it’s place was a long, muddy, brand new levy with a huge John Deere tractor making it’s way through the muck and mire.   There were actually several of those behemoths working the area.  I was so discombobulated that I didn’t even think to take any pictures of this predicament.  There are three more count spots that I normally drive to along the road that used to be there.  What a dilemma.  I decided there was no way I was going to try to drive the suburban into that mess.  All that machinery churning around also meant that there weren’t very many birds in the first count area either.  :(

So, I could only do four of the seven stops this morning, and I had minor issues at two of those.  Ranchers are allowed to graze cattle on certain sections of the refuge, and one of my sites had a herd milling around when I arrived.  If you remember from last week, I have to walk a transit at each site, and I wasn’t crazy about doing battle with the cattle.  It’s usually cows that I encounter, but there was a big bull amongst them this morning.  Well, I gave it my all and headed out waving my arms and telling them to move on.  I thought there might be a stand off, but then they suddenly all turned and headed for the hills! (not that there are any hills to head for here:))  I counted the few birds that they flushed as they made their exit, but it was a little dicey tip toeing through the cow pies.  :)

As I arrived at my last site, and began the sitting still for five minutes scanning the area count, a huge diesel dump truck pulled up behind me.  The driver got out (revealing a huge plumber’s crack as he climbed out) and wanted to know if I was the big honcho of the refuge.  I told him no, I’m just doing a bird count.  He then went on a real chin flap about ducks and such; gave me his business card, and told me to call him if I ever needed a big load of dirt!  Alrighty then!  I’ll certainly keep that in mind, and thanks for chasing off any birds I might have counted with your big noisy truck.  I had to chuckle about that.  I guessed it was just going to be one of those mornings.  :)

A disappearing road, a bovine encounter, and an offer of a huge truck load of dirt… I just love this lifestyle!

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy 

Another day, another bird survey

Once the windshield defrosted this morning (I don’t have a scraper), I headed out to do this week’s bird survey.  After the thousands of waterfowl we saw last week, I was really looking forward to doing the count on my own this week.  I should have known!  There’s one thing you can count on about birds…they have wings!  :)  And they used those wings to travel to other areas of the refuge.  :(  It’s not that I didn’t see any birds, I just didn’t count the numbers that we did last week.

This is a scientific survey, so the rules of what to do and where are pretty strict.  There are seven sites that I visit in the East Unit of the refuge.  The count, obviously, has to be done on non hunt days. (this area is where a public hunt is allowed on the weekends)  I don’t want anybody to mistake me for a low flying double-breasted migrant bird lady!  :)
I couldn’t count these snow geese because they just flew past outside my count area.  I just put this pick in for AL…is this that curvy S thing that leads you through the picture?

As I approach each count area, I record which birds I flush and how many.  Then, once stopped, I scan the count area for all species, and how many of each.  After five minutes of scanning, I then walk a predetermined transit that I believe is 500 feet long counting all birds that are flushed while I walk.  The levies determine the boundaries of each count area.  Some of these fields are flooded, and others aren’t.  Flooded fields are the only areas where you’ll find waterfowl.  In the other unflooded areas, I mainly count land birds and raptors that are hunting the field.
While I was driving between count areas, I came upon this red-tailed hawk perched in a dead tree.  It wasn’t long before it took flight.  High perches are what red-tails like.  Their eye power is unbelievable.  They can see a mouse a mile away!  It was early in the cool morning, so the thermals that these hawks float on to hunt just hadn’t developed yet.
The bird on the left is a Savannah sparrow, and the bird on the right is an Eastern Phoebe.  There are a gazillion Savannah sparrows on the refuge, and I generally kick them up in good numbers no matter what count plot I stop at.  That little splash of yellow on it’s eyebrow (known as a lore, in bird circles) is diagnostic of this sparrow.  The amount of yellow is variable.  Of course, the Eastern phoebe didn’t make an appearance until after my five minute scan of the 7th area, so I couldn’t count it.  :(
One of my favorite birds on the refuge is the marsh wren.  I just love the way they hop around in the reeds of the marsh and chatter away as they’re doing it.  They don’t hold still for long!  You’ve got to be quick to spot one.  Looks like this one is doing the splits!  :)

Now I’ve got a couple of hours of data entry to do of today’s sightings.  These surveys are my favorite thing to do on the refuge.  Hope you’ve enjoyed a morning in the life of a NWR volunteer…

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

This and that

First, I’d like to thank everyone for their comments on my decision to spend the summer in Indiana, and for suggestions of what to see in the area.  Lora was especially helpful with some websites of wildlife areas in close proximity.  I probably need to let some of you know that I was born and grew up in the city of Chicago, so I’m well aware of what the city has to offer.  I’d sure like to get a pizza from Frank’s Pizza on the northwest side, and am hoping that Ackerman’s Bakery is still in business.  :)

It was cold, overcast, and a little rainy when I got up this morning, so I decided to put off the bird survey until tomorrow.  That will give the back roads a little time to dry out a bit.  Instead, I headed into the VIS to pick up the contraption that puts sales tags on items like tee shirts.  I had three totes full of shirts waiting to be tagged with the new bar code thingy at the community building at the RV sites.  Colin had printed off the new bars codes for me before he left.
Since I had driven ten miles to get to the VIS, I decided to check the refuge roads to see what was happening in the blustery bird world.
With the weather, the shovelers and pied-billed grebes had moved into the more protected areas closer to the road.
As I rounded one of the corners, huge flocks of snow geese took flight in the distance.   It’s hard to describe in words the magnitude of the thousands of geese filling the sky.  I guess you just have to be here!  Tomorrow I’ll be counting multitudes like this.  What a sight it was.
I surprised this snowy egret along the way.  I guess it decided on flight rather than fight!  Notice the yellow dancing shoes…a diagnostic feature in identification of this species. 
Back at the ranch (RV pads), several Wilson’s snipes had landed in a flooded section of the lawn surrounding the RVs.
Usually, we just have about a dozen killdeer patrolling the area, but the 1/2” of rain overnight provided wetter areas that the snipes like.  Because the water table is not far below the surface in this marshy area, it doesn’t take much rain to provide wetland areas.  Emma doesn’t like getting her feet wet, and she is a real hoot to watch on a morning like today as she daintily prances around to find that perfect spot to do her business.  :)

Along about sunset, as I was on the computer editing my photos of the day, I began to hear sounds through the closed windows that made me think I was near an off-road vehicle race track.  As I scratched my head in surprise, Emma began barking with exuberance!  I need to tell you that there are only two things that cause Emma to bark… turkey vultures and cows.  Sure enough, another cattle drive was occurring down FM 1985.  It was too dark for any good pics, but I had to just chuckle at Emma’s antics at protecting us from this onslaught of bellowing bovines!  As she safely sat at the front window, her head arched backwards as the elongated woofs emanated from her core being.  She was successful in keeping us safe from this invasion, and all is well tonight.  :)  Of course, I’m sure in her mind, the cowboys had nothing to do with the cows staying away from us…
                                                                        THE END! 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy

An abrupt change

Thanksgiving Day dawned hot and muggy, and the mosquitoes were out in full force.  For the first time in refuge history, one of the volunteers had to work in the VIS (visitor’s center) on a National Holiday.  So, that meant we would all wait to have our dinner until Colin returned from his tour of duty.  :)  Colin is a resident of England that has flown here each fall for the last eight years to volunteer on the refuge.  He took the VIS duty yesterday so the rest of us could get the dinner prepared.  Turns out he had never heard of the sweet potato dish topped with marshmallows, but loved the traditional green bean casserole that I prepared.  Neither of these dishes are normally served in England.  As usual, there was more food available than could be consumed, but it was an enjoyable and tasty repast.
                                    Tonight’s photos are some from my recent cruise.

One of the things I really look forward to at a Thanksgiving Feast is savoring the taste of a large piece of crisp, brown turkey breast skin with a dash of salt sprinkled on it.  I know it’s not good for you to eat, but once a year I indulge and my mouth was watering at the thought of this culinary delight for me.  Boy, was I disappointed!  I don’t know what the carver of the turkey did with the skin, but none was to be found.  :(  I’m thinking I just may have to go buy one of those turkey breasts with the skin on so I can roast it and have my yearly treat.  (a whole turkey is just too big for me alone)

The wait staff put on quite a show the last night of the cruise as we dined.

After the feasting, I came back to the rig and the air conditioner was still running pretty steadily.  Then about 9:00, the wind shifted, the rain began, and the temp dropped about 30 degrees in 30 minutes!  I was suddenly getting goose bumps, and even had to turn the heat on.  What an abrupt change of weather as the cold front from the north moved through.  It didn’t drop low enough to wipe out our massive supply of mosquitoes, but today’s northerly high winds did keep them at bay. 

It rained most of this morning, and I just hunkered down inside and played on the computer.  I did a little work in the afternoon taking inventory for the VIS, but all in all it was a relaxing day spent inside with the furnace on.  Each time I took Emma out, she was invigorated by the cooler temperatures and ran circles around me at the end of her 18’ lead.  She likes the colder temps more than I do.  :)

If the sun shines tomorrow, perhaps we’ll take a drive.  Maybe I’ll make a trip to the Bolivar Peninsula.  I think I’ll pack a lunch tonight just in case…
                                        Sunrise entering the port of Nassau, Bahamas.

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy