We left at 8:20 for the Santa Ana NWR. As we drove away from our campsite I noticed our only neighbors sitting peacefully outside their coach in the shade. Birders don't do that. They get up in the morning and drive around trying to find birds!!!! The other couple looked so pleasantly comfortable to me as we drove madly off.
It was the usual hectic drive on the freeway--I somehow had expected people to stay home on Easter morning.
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Santa Ana has a welcoming Visitor's Center and some very posh (paved) and well-marked trails.
We walked the Kiskadee trail first.
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It is fascinating to see Spanish moss on the trees in this dry country
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A deluxe bird blind overlooked a beautiful "birdy" pond
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Pair of camera-shy Blue-winged Teal always swimming away from us and White-faced Ibis
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Solitary Sandpiper and another reminder of the precarious nature of nature here
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Today is hot and muggy. The saving grace is a stiff breeze. This butterfly was hanging tight to the flower blowing in the wind. Our next pond destination in the distance.
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A Solitary Sandpiper worked alone. At the next pond, we enjoyed a favorite perch for herons and egrets with life birds Cattle Egrets and Little Blue Heron on the left
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Cattle Egrets and then a Great Egret with Cattle Egrets
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A Little Blue Heron and a Great Egret--breeding plumage
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Pied-billed Grebe. We are still looking for the Least Grebe.
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But we got a real bonus for the day when a Ringed Kingfisher flew over and landed in a tree nearby. That's a serious BILL!
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White Ibis—Juvenile and Black-bellied Whistling Ducks
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Three ducks in a row. Now wait a minute what is that bird on the right? That duck is a White Ibis.
The Javalina remained in hiding on this occasion.
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A Chachalaca heading for cover!
Texas Sweet Onion field—a familiar smell in a foreign place.
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Now it is time to find our Easter dinner—easier said than done according to the visitor’s center attendant. I wanted Mexican food, but she said Easter is a really big event for Hispanics so their restaurants wouldn’t be open, and neither was the local bar-b-qua.
The freeway has one-way frontage roads going along each side that serve as exits and entrances. All the stores line the frontage roads. By the time you see a restaurant going 60 miles an hour you are past it. You could go back by using the frontage roads and drive at least a mile on each one to turn around—quite cumbersome.
The attendant suggested the best bet for food on Easter is the Stripes gas stations which have Mexican food and they cook it for you. As we got to our home exit we saw the Stripes and went there.
I chose shrimp fajitas. But I couldn’t answer questions by the server (all in Spanish) and she couldn’t understand me. With help from the chef finally got it figured out.
We decided to take the food to our RV site. Mine was delicious with fresh shrimp, tomatoes and some kind of green pepper that was not a bell green pepper (HOT). Paul had fried catfish and said it was very tasty.
Then we moved our computers to the picnic tables and loaded photos and blogged. We can enjoy all the birds around the park, like this Golden-fronted Woodpecker.
We can’t really keep the motorhome cool in the heat of the day. The blessing is the constant healthy breeze that serves to cool. Sofie is more content than anywhere else lying on the cool concrete patio under us.
We did not have to wait for the Elf Owl tonite—our neighbors went and got mosquitoed out before the owls appeared.
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Today Our Eyes Were On:
A different kind of Easter but rejuvenating in its own way.
Several new and wonderful life birds: Little Blue Heron, Cattle Egrets, White Ibis, Ringed Kingfisher (what a beak!!!!)
Great-tailed Grackle berry-picking
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Check out your Lesser Yellowlegs - looks more like a Solitary Sandpiper with that eyering and speckled back.
ReplyDeleteDid you walk the skywalk at Santa Ana?? Ginger did!
Thanks again for blogging - we really enjoy it - especially since we can't go! M&ML