Wild Bird Wednesday - Sunset at the North Jetty, Bolivar

I spent most of a long day getting myself, and my sinker cypress board (to use to build new thwarts and gunnels for my canoe) home from Hammond, Louisiana.  This is usually only a  five hour trip, but it took about 2 hours more to detour to pick up the board, then get it to ride on the car.  I had forgotten to put my racks on so was working with foam carriers.

At Old Wood Reclaimed, where I finally located a board long enough for new canoe gunnels

Then my car was irresistibly pulled into turning down the road that leads to the Creole Nature Trail that runs through Sabine National Wildlife Refuge.  Then, since, the highway no longer exists along the coast from Port Arthur to High Island, I chose to drive to Port Arthur, back up to I-10 at Winnie, and then back down to the coast  on Bolivar Peninsula to drive to the Galveston Ferry.  I anticipated lots of birds but very few were around.

By the time I was on the Bolivar Peninsula,  the light was getting really beautiful. I would be a little early to see the sunset but the perfect way to kill another hour popped into my head in time for me to hunt down the North Jetty. This is on the west side of Audubon's Bolivar Flats, 1.7 miles from the ferry, and is the place to find birds in good light in the afternoon.  The Jetty is nearly a mile long, so there are lots of great views.  And there is a little oyster reef just at the end of my camera's range,  that attracts loafing and roosting birds.

Willett and greater yellowlegs. 

Avocet

Marbled godwit with food

Laughing gulls are molting into breeding plumage

Marbled godwit pair

Red knots

Snowy egret and willet

A few of an estimated 500 skimmers - they were coming in to roost and their numbers kept growing

White pelicans flying to feeding area on west side of the dike 

Feeding time - there were at least 25 pelicans in this group

Willet trio

Black-bellied plover

Unsuccessful fisherman coming back

Sunset over Fort Travis 

I ended up staying there until almost dark.  It was a wonderful time. And I managed to have one more small adventure when I couldn't start my car to drive off the ferry and had to be pushed by some of the ferry crew to get started. Thankfully, I still drive a stick shift.  I spent two more days getting the battery replaced - you don't want to know - before  finding that I had a bad fuse causing the problem. Two days later, I had to be jumped again and this time my jumper cables caught on fire. I slightly burned my fingers grabbing the cables off both cars.  I think the main problem was a loose connection to my positive post. I went to an Auto Zone  and bought a little gizmo that fits over the post and reestablishes connectivity.  So far, I'm good and my fingers can feel again.

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Crossing a River in the Sky

This morning was supposed to be windy and rainy. But I woke to a clear sky and calm air.  I decided to spend most of the day birding and also go to the library and buy groceries in Burns.

My first stop was Ruh-Red Road. It runs against the north side of Malheur Lake for about three miles.  Those three miles have water on both sides of the road and are the best birding place I've found as the birds are a little more dense and much closer  to the observer than most places.

A strange blue

A few of about eighty pelicans

Our birds are mostly just stopping here for a refuel so our populations change dramatically.  I saw no tundra swans today but we are really getting in the pelicans. The most common duck was the shoveler - I saw around 400. We had more lesser scaup today but no ring-necked ducks. There were only a few redheads which breed here. But I did get around 28 species at this location.

Then I took the information about birding around Burns and started towards town.  I was reading about the birds to be found on Wright's Point when I learned it is actually not a strange ridge, but an old stream bed. It had a lava flow down it which protected if from weathering so now you have to climb to cross the old river bed.  You climb up one side of the ridge, then finally cross over, where there must have been wide part.  Then you go down along the east side of the ridge.   From the road, you just see this strange, winding ridge, with flat land on either side of it.

Wright's Point - the only hill between Malheur and Burns

The road goes up the south side and then turns and comes down along north  side

A closeup view of some of the rim rock which is old volcanic rock and doesn't weather as fast as the rest

View from Burns side on way back home

View from the top of Wright's Point looking east

I spent another few hours just driving around and taking pictures.  I had wanted to go hiking but the wind was so strong that it was hard to get the car door open. In fact, while I was shopping, I was called to the front of the store.  A woman had parked her van next to me and when she opened her door, the wind tore it out of her hand and it knocked off one of my racks. Didn't hurt anything, though.

Old building and hay

The wind blowing water against the bank

The first avocets I've seen in full breeding plumage - some breed here

Red-headed ducks breed here also

A field of snows - I could only get a small part of them they will go much further north to breed

View looking east across Malheur Lake at sunset - that is light, not snow

A wild sunset