We’re bidding a fond farewell to Goose Island State Park
near Fullton/Rockport, TX this morning and beginning our inland trek. We
originally planned on staying for 4 days but extended the time by an additional
5 days because there was so much to see and do here. The park is clean and well
maintained, with very friendly and helpful staff and volunteers and pleasantly
large and relatively private camp sites. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the
volunteers included a couple who served as “Birding Hosts”, who got us hooked
on our new joint hobby of birding.
While
here we have seen magnificent sunsets, enjoyed two sightings of the rare and
elusive Whooping Crane along with many other interesting and pretty shorebirds
that we never see in the Midwest, by last count around 30 different species,
only a handful of which we are familiar with from seeing them in Michigan. One day we visited Goliad, a town of
historical significance. Although everyone is familiar with the Alamo and the
events that transpired there, fewer are as aware that only a few months
following the massacre at the Alamo, 340 were killed at Goliad (twice as many
as at the Alamo). I’ll dedicate an
upcoming blog posting with photos specifically to Goliad.
Yesterday we spent the afternoon visiting the nearby Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, where we saw, pretty up-close and personal: 3 alligators
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| About 35 feet away from us on the other side of a pond; the one on the left was probably around 10 ft. long |
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| Smaller one on the right, close-up |
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| My, what big teeth you have! |
7
Pecarries (Javelina)
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| Crossing the road about 15 feet in front of us |
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| Rooting at the side of the road as we drove by - not much bothered by our presence |
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| Wild boar with 4 piglets (1 baby just barely in photo lower right) - note long tail |
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| Feral Hogs, one on left appeared to be a hybrid with wild boar |
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| Deer, about 4 ft. from car - not at all worried about our presence |
We also experienced our second Whooping crane sighting here - a pair we could see through binoculars from a special platform built for that purpose. Too far away for a photo.
Today is a road-trip day, beautiful, clear
and sunny. We anticipate that scenery
will be similar to that we’ve seen so far – miles and miles of scrub mesquite,
dry grass, agave and cactus, nearly all fenced, so we assume ranches,
with only occasionally a few head of cattle, many of them a long-horned
variety. This is a place where you see
oil wells on one side of the road and wind farms on the other, a state that is gleaning
energy from both below- and above-ground.
We have been driving for the last half hour on North 181 with massive
wind farm to our left – well over 100 large windmills stretching as far as we
could see. To our right were several sites
with working oil wells and numerous storage tanks.
Fun factoid: when we were in Florida last year,
winter visitors to the state were commonly referred to as ‘snowbirds’; in
Texas, they are referred to as ‘winter Texans’. Happy Valentines day to our family and friends!
6 comments:
Great photos! I hope you were using a zoom lens for the close up of the alligator, otherwise, way too close for comfort. Happy Valentine's Day to you and John. :)
Very cool wildlife. I love crocs, but I've only seen them at a zoo. Thanks for sharing this stuff. Funny about the birds.
Did you get any photos of the whooping cranes? Oh I love them!! Will you be visiting Big Bend too?
Definitely a zoom on those photos, however we did come upon one that was just about 4 feet from us - his back was turned to us, which we figured was a good thing. It was also much smaller than these larger ones in the photos - probably only 4-5 feet.
Unfortunately we couldn't get close enough to the Whooping Cranes for photos - my zoom lens is just 40x, I'm going to have to upgrade if we keep up this hobby! We probably won't make it to Big Bend on this trip; it will have to wait for a later one. So many wonderful places to see, too little time!
Crocs in a zoo are probably a better bet, although there is something about seeing these ancient beasts in nature; makes you feel you've stepped back to a MUCH earlier time. These guys were across some water and sunning themselves on a fairly cool day, so probably a bit sluggish, otherwise it would have felt a bit too close for comfort for me.
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