January Paddle on White's Bayou

January 19,2020

When Natalie asked me to save six weeks to be on call to  house-sit for her, I immediately blocked out my calendar, but told her, of course,  I'll have plenty of time to hold lots of wild parties. I sent out the invitations to schedule some time visiting me. Winnie took me up on that and planned to spend a few days up here. She asked for a paddle.

Natalie ended up staying - I said it was because  she knew we would have too much fun without her  - because here grandson was still unborn.  So she was on this trip.  We invited Bob, and another friend, Ann to go with us. Bob came down to our house for a lasagne supper the night before and was on hand to to help load the boats.

We decided to paddle White's Bayou from the Fair Park at Anahuac, Texas. It is a very natural, winding bayou that empties into Turtle Bayou, only yards north of the put-in. So this put-in gives us access to an upstream and downstream paddle, on Turtle Bayou as well as to White's Bayou.

Getting ready

Our token man, Bob

Underway

Ann with Ellen and Natalie

Bob and Winnie, wielding a camera as usual

Ellen was an enthusiastic paddler

Bob stopped to clear a tight spot 

Breaking overhead branches away

This is a very protected bayou with high banks along much of it

The final log jam is our end of the journey

Turning around

Winnie and Ann 

Ellen in her happy place

Two holdouts

Winnie's picture of me - so happy to get to do this again- even poorly and with some pain

Back at the put-in

On a personal note, I'm Colorado dreaming. About to set a leaving date for a few weeks away. And I'm finally housesitting.

Birding with Laurel: Brazos Bend State Park

January 7, 2020

We spent our last four birding days at Natalie's house.  Natalie was able to go birding with us  one day and picked Brazos Bend State Park.  That park still has enough birds to be fun.

Blue winged teal were the ducks de jour

You know birding is tough when coots start looking good

I think this was the only little blue heron we saw on our tour

Common birds looking pretty - Great egret and white ibis

Vermillion flycatcher - one of the few birds holding their own or even expanding their territory 

White ibis

Tricolored heron

We saw ring necked ducks only twice on our tour - but there were several in forty acre lake

A serendipitous find - I practically  fell over an American pipet when I stopped to find a restroom 

We have to take an alligator picture or two here

I saw my first ever black bellied whistling ducks here my first Christmas count in Texas - I think 1990 -
since then,  their population has exploded

This ibis was under the roots of a tree making it possible to get a good picture in bright sunlight

I don't know where the cormorants are - hopefully still up north - but we only saw a few on our tour

When there are few birds, turtles will do

A little orange crowned warbler that made me work hard for this picture

I got separated from my buddies, but they had no problem entertaining themselves

I joined them on the bench and we sat there, recuperating and enjoying the black bellied ducks, when a couple biked past us exchanging hellos. I was in the process of chasing down the orange crowned warbler when I realized they had screeched to a halt and were coming back.  I heard "Marilyn".  I said yes and the woman said, "it's Chuck and Jill. Do you remember us?" I replied, "Chocolate Peanut Butter Unbaked Cookies. " (We had camped together a few decades earlier, and Jill had taught us to make them. ) We enjoyed a visit with them - they were camping at the park-  then they asked me to take a picture with them. We also asked them to take a picture of the three of us.

Jill, Chuck and Yours Truly

The three stooges

We had a wonderful time birding and visiting.  We didn't find either woodcock or snipe, although both had been found on the Christmas count. 

Our adventure will end tomorrow - at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.