Marbles

When I was a youngster, I had a marvelous collection of marbles.  They came in all colors of the rainbow, and I enjoyed just rolling them around in my hand.  There were some beautiful cat’s eyes and many others that I can’t remember the names of.  I’ve often wondered what happened to that prized bag of marbles.  I don’t remember actually playing a game of marbles with them, but I’m sure I did.

When I arrived to open the VIS this morning, I was surprised to find a new supply of things to sell at the nature store.  Among those items was about a couple of dozen bags of differently colored marbles.   Each bag had a picture of an animal or natural phenomenon to go along with the colors in the bag.  I was drawn to them, and ended up buying four different bags.

I ended up choosing Bumblebee, Wicked Owl, Ladybug, and Goldfish.  What’s a grandmother to do with four bags of marbles?  I do have a couple of grandsons that are about the age to perhaps be interested in marbles.  Now I just have to figure out how to play marbles.  Do any of you remember the rules?  My granddaughters aren’t quite old enough for this, but I’ll store them next to the box of colors and coloring books for youthful visitors.    In the meantime, I just may have to dig some of them out and roll them around in my hands.

It was a pretty slow day in the VIS with not much happening besides many many big construction trucks rolling by to dump their contents for the ongoing paving projects.  Between the drought and the construction, there aren’t many birds to entice visitors down the refuge roads.  A few little lantanas are still blooming in the butterfly garden…

…and there were a few what I think are some kind of sulphur butterflies feeding on the Turk’s cap.  Not too exciting.  I’m hoping to meet up with fellow bloggers I’ve never met tomorrow, and have offered to give them a tour of the refuge.  We’ll see how that pans out.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

A surprising daytime visitor

On the way to get groceries this morning, I decided to take care of a couple of other chores along the way.  I wanted to go through an automatic car wash to get off all the residue on the front of the car that accumulates from the exhaust of the motorhome when it is towed.  Never had this problem until I got this rig since the engine is in the back.  Pulled into the washer to deposit my money, and the machine said it was broken. Please come again.  Okay, so I moved on to the new Dollar General that had opened in Winnie.  Sign on that door said they would open at noon… two strikes.  I’m having a real problem finding those little doggy poop bags, and thought a new store might stock them.  At least the Market Basket in town was open and running.  I prefer to shop at the HEB in Beaumont, but this store is 30 miles closer.  The prices are a little higher here, and the selection is not as great, but I like to support local enterprises as well. 

This store has enough young employees that they take your purchases out to your car for you, and tipping is not allowed.  Only problem with that is how much they put in each bag.  I use cloth bags that I bring into the store, and I always bring plenty of them so the weight can be spread out.  Next time I think I’ll ask them to think of me as their little old grandma who can’t handle all the canned goods in one bag. 

It’s hard to believe, but I forgot to bring my binoculars with me yesterday as we went into the East unit to see all of the waterfowl.  So I had to use my camera to identify this hatching year female Cooper’s hawk.  I then knew it was a young bird because of the vertical striping on its breast, and knew it was a female by its size.  Females in this species are quite a bit bigger than the males.

We also found a rather small turtle near the water by the hunter’s check station.  Stephanie was interested to hear that it had yellow striping on the head rather than red.

Early this afternoon, Emma went berserk while she was on her tie out.  She generally only gives a few barks if a turkey vulture or a red-tailed hawk soars over our site, but this time she went on and on.  I grabbed my camera and headed out the door.

                                Aha!  A nine banded armadillo was making its way along the fence line.

See those long nails on its front foot?  They are great diggers.  They also don’t see very well, so are pretty easy to approach.  If they have to cross a creek, or stream, or bayou, they can do it in one of two ways.  They can either hold their breathe and just walk across the bottom, or they can inflate air sacks and swim across.  If it’s a stressful time for finding food, pregnant females can also delay the development of their embryos until things improve.  Just toss out those little bits of trivia the next time you’re at a lack for conversation. 

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Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Watching for a red bird of a different feather

I’m a pretty planful person, and my schedule for today was to pick up the road closure maps I forgot yesterday at headquarters, post them at the VIS on the refuge, and do grocery shopping in the afternoon.  My morning went pretty much as planned.  While I was at the VIS, fellow volunteer Bob helped me get into the storage pod to get a five gallon pail for trash pick up, and showed me the electric vehicle that volunteers have been asked to make use of when doing things on the refuge.  I’ll show you a picture of that tomorrow if I get it running for a drive down the refuge roads.  I may try to use it next week to do some salinity testing.  I’ve been told not to stomp on the accelerator pedal or you’ll do a wheelie!  Could be an exciting ride.

I came back to the rig for lunch, and that’s when my plans changed.

As I was getting ready to go shopping, Stephanie gave me a call and asked if I’d like to go on a field trip with her.  Patrick, the refuge biologist, was doing an aerial survey of the waterfowl using the refuge.  We would be on the usually closed East Unit watching for the big red bird to fly over.  Hmmm… go grocery shopping or observe birds?  You know my answer!

As we spotted the plane in the distance, it began to kick up the snow geese.  There are about 83 geese in this small flock.

As the plane got closer, it seemed to be enveloped in the flock as more and more geese took to the air.

This bunch alone appeared to have close to 10,000 geese in it.  (click to enlarge)  These birds were about a mile away from where we were stationed. 

Then they buzzed the moist soil units where we were parked.  This area had thousands of ducks resting and feeding on it.  They rose in a huge cloud.

What a sight it was to see!  I couldn’t even guess how many thousands of ducks were in this one picture frame.  Without the refuge, there would be no place for these true Texas “Snow” birds!  These numbers boggle the mind.  It’s like watching the ‘Great Migration’ shows I’ve been DVRing.  I truly feel lucky to be able to observe this awesomeness. 

On our way back to the rigs, we got a brief view of one of our sunset seranaders.  This was a rather scruffy looking coyote compared to others I’ve seen on the refuge.  Perhaps the drought has effected them as well.  So, do you think I should have gone grocery shopping instead?  Ha Ha…not on your life!

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Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

An unwelcome assignment

I got a call from Stephanie, the volunteer coordinator, last night asking if I was up to helping them out at headquarters this afternoon.  As understanding as she has been, I couldn’t say no.  So, I spent about five hours sitting at a desk answering all the incoming calls to the refuge.  That was about the limit for my back.  Doing office work ranks at the very bottom of what I like to do as a volunteer.  I learned very early in my retirement volunteering career that I’ll never knowingly sign up for office work.  It’s just not my cup of tea.

The new headquarters, located on Lake Anahuac, is gorgeous.  I posted some pictures from the pond located behind the building a couple of weeks ago. 

I took a break midway through my stint, and decided to walk the trail down to the lake.

Wasn’t sure I’d be able to do the whole thing, but it turned out my back cooperated.  There is a wonderful boardwalk that goes down to the lake edge.

The boardwalk meanders through a cypress swamp.  It is very peaceful, and today there weren’t the hordes of mosquitoes attacking that there were a couple of weeks ago when I tried to take this walk.  I could see that I would want to take this enjoyable walk again.

I thought I was going to get a good shot of a pileated woodpecker, but the darn branch got in the way of his head.   By the time I inched forward to avoid the branch, the bird had taken flight.  Shucks!  You can see that the cypress are draped with Spanish moss.  What a delightful 1/2 mile round trip walk this is.

I survived my time in the office, but I’d much prefer to be picking up litter along the refuge roads and spend my time outdoors.  I’ll be doing that some time before my stint in the VIS on Sunday.

On a totally different topic, have any of you heard of star parties?  I think it’s where an astronomical club camps out to watch the heavens, but I’m not sure.  Has anyone done this?

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Gas, birds, and wasps

No, I’m not now having intestinal problems, and neither is Emma.  I have been assigned a refuge vehicle to use for my work on the refuge.  The vehicle I have this year is a Suburban with four wheel drive capabilities since I may be doing bird surveys on the back roads of the refuge.  This is the same vehicle that was used to take Colin to the Bush International Airport north of Houston, and transported me back and forth to the VIS this weekend.  The gas gage was really nearing the E stage, so that was on my agenda this morning.  The gas pumps are located 10 miles away at the maintenance building.  I don’t know how to turn on the pump on the weekend when staff isn’t around, so we volunteers usually fill up during the week.  Each refuge handles this a little differently, and I checked with Bob this morning to review the procedure.  Everything went smoothly, and I put in over 37 gallons.  Phew!

As long as I was down near the VIS, I decided to drive those roads that aren’t closed to construction to see what I could see.

Basically, it was the normal cast of characters.  This snowy egret was fishing at one of the water structures.

In the surrounding marsh, a great blue heron had just swallowed its lunch.  It must have been a good sized morsel as it continued to stand there with its mouth open and that huge bulge in its neck.  Perhaps it bit off more than it could chew?

There was a strong wind out of the west today that produced some waves and sea foam along the shore of Galveston Bay at high tide.  I found one lone willet working the shoreline down by the boat launch.  This shorebird has a very distinctive wing pattern that can only be seen when it raises its wings. 

The winds will be switching to the north this evening, and the warm temperatures are going to drop.  Since the winds are supposed to calm down some, I decided to put out the window awnings on the east side of my rig.  That morning sun with no trees or hills to block the rays blasts right in those windows.  Many folks deploy their window awnings from the outside with the use of an awning stick with a hook on the end.  I’m too short to do that, and have found it easier to just open the window and screen and lean out to pull the awning out.  When I pulled out the bedroom awning about a dozen or so wasps came dumping out.  With the cooler temps coming, they must have all crawled under the awning cover for the night.  I’ve never had that happen before.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Two ho-hum days

I’ve used yesterday and today to recuperate from working the VIS this weekend.  While the pain in my back is much better, it is still a constant companion.  In between remaining prone on the couch, I’ve been taking care of ordinary chores around the rig like laundry and meal preparation.  I even tackled using the vacuum today.  It was a chore that was not possible for me to do last week.

Today started with the electricity going out about 7:30 for over three hours.  It’s been in the 80’s and very humid, so I took this as an opportunity to exercise the generator.  At least that’s done for the month.  It kicked right in, and I was able to stay very comfortable during the outage. 

The forecast for this afternoon was for high winds, severe storms, and possible tornadoes.  I put away my outside furniture and battened down the hatches.  Apparently Houston got plenty of rain, but all we got was dark skies and a few drops of rain.  Houston is about 27” behind in rain this year, and the refuge could have also used a good dousing.  The skies rumbled and Emma trembled, but all for naught.  The winds have even quit.

The result of no winds is that I got five mosquito bites taking Emma out after dinner.  They even bit through my thick socks!  Ugh!  I hate mosquitoes.

I’m hoping to do something more interesting tomorrow. 

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy

Back to work

I finally felt well enough to work in the VIS this weekend.  I didn’t think I could manage two full days, so a person was supposed to relieve me each day.  I ended up working 7 hours on Saturday which was about two hours too long.  I guess there was a slight problem with communications there.

This morning, Dorothy came in with me so that I could give her a review on running the VIS, and I was able to leave and be back to the rig by about 1:00.  That was about the right amount of time.

I ran into this little dude who was trying to sign in at the registration booth.  I think the little suction cups on the toes of tree frogs are cool.

The last couple of days have been in the 80’s, which is about ten degrees above normal for this area.  Those temps have been accompanied by very high southerly winds, but the Turk's cap are still blooming and the gulf fritillaries are still around.

Migrating birds continue to arrive at the refuge.  There was a large flock of white-crowned sparrows singing their hearts out today in the butterfly gardens, and each morning and night I am serenaded by the moving flocks of geese in the skies over the rig.  Thousands of boat-tailed grackles continue to descend on the RV pads each morning around 6:00.  I don’t know what the attraction is for them, and I’m getting a little tired of all the white wash on my rig. 

Had a little mystery going on the last couple of days.  Emma has one of those stuffingless(?) fox toys to play with outside.  She loves to shake it up and toss it around after I give her dinner each night.  Well, it went missing yesterday.  I looked everywhere…under the cars and rig, under the picnic table, etc.  It was no where to be found.  It was still missing this morning.  Then suddenly this afternoon, it reappeared in the middle of our little yard.  I have no idea where it went to or how it reappeared.  Hmmm…

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy