Moose Cove Birding HikeII

My blogging is getting put on the back burner, both because I'm working a LOT - I was cleaning the bunkhouse and doing woodcock surveys around other work - and also moving from the Fire House to my own trailer, which I'm sure I'll like much better, now that the summer techs and interns are starting to arrive.  And our weather has been so rainy that I don't want to take pictures.  So most of my pictures are work related, and show the culverts I'm locating and the places where we need to remove fallen trees from out trails.  So, while I'm having a good time working, it doesn't make for a good story.

However last weekend I got to take part in the Down East Birding Festival. I helped with two refuge hikes and and a children's activity about how birds are adapted to eat different foods and live in different habitats. But I also got to take a hike to look for birds. It was a fabulous hike, and we got to see a lot of birds, at least for this area. But one of the things this Texas wasn't expecting was that we have to identify most of our passerines by their calls. The birds are mostly hiding high up in the now leafy trees. And the few birds we did catch in our binoculars were far away and moving around quickly in dim light - the day went cloudy soon after we started the hike and I got rained on just after I got back into my car. We did find 26 species.  If you are interested, click here to see my e-bird list.

Our leader, Eric, explaining where we'll be walking

The clouds were coming in quickly - this trip started at 6:30 A

Our first stop was this beautiful bay

Looking over the bay for seabirds

We got long looks at this cedar waxwing 

We traveled through a wide variety of habitats from open fields to deep woods and including hardwoods and evergreens

I thought this fiddlehead of Cinnamon fern was gorgeous

There is a loop here - we didn't do this part as it is harder to do

I love this new growth - but last Sunday I was helping with a Rhodes Scholar hike in rain showers so didn't have my camera while I was watching a porcupine sit at the end of a branch and feast on the little brown cones. 

We are walking along a ridge and getting views of the cove to our right 

A view across the cove

I loved the tenacity of this tree - I made a hook, crawled across the ground, and finally got to a place where it could grow in the sun.

Another of the many habitats through which we passed 

We finally reached the rocky shore of the cove - but across the way was a clammer on a mudflat

A herring gull flies off with breakfast

A white variety of a pink lady slipper

This hike was led by Erick, a staffer at Maine Coast Heritage Trust.  Click on the link to find all their properties and perhaps go explore some of their special areas. I'm planning to use this link for to find more hikes.

I  stopped to write this for Sunday's blog on the way to Acadia National Park. I didn't know they were also having their bird festival  this week but found out in time to register to go on a sea bird tour on Saturday.  And I brought my bike and hiking poles and plan to try and fit in a lot of activities between Thursday and Monday, in spite of a prediction of partly cloudy to cloudy skies and showers for all the days I'll be playing.  Stay tuned.

Along the Sunset Trail

Tuesday, Jan 11, 2016

As the day moved towards evening, more and more clouds were reporting for sunset duty.  Previously, on a hike in Nags Head Woods, a little parcel of land owned by the Nature Conservancy, I had found a path that terminated in the bay and thought it might be a good place to observe sunset. So I took another little hike down to check it out.

Just before I arrived at the parking lot,  I saw the sun go behind a huge cloud bank.  I thought that sunset would be a bust, but, since I've experienced this before and had the day go cloudy, then come back to sunny, I went ahead and began my hike.

  I enjoyed the peaceful solitude, unbroken by a even a bird call or the scold of a squirrel.  I took pictures of glowing leaves, the last leaf on a young oak tree, and the view of the trail in front of me as it wound through mostly pine trees interspersed with a few oaks and sweetgums. When I got to the first open place,  with a view of  the sound, I got a few pre-sunset pictures and thought that was the best I would get. Just past that spot, I stopped to admire a huge tree that appears to be dead or mostly dead. Then I noticed that the light was getting brighter. When I reached the end of the trail, I found the solid cloud was breaking up into thousands of fluffy clouds, leaving spaces for the sun to play hide and seek.

This now rare glow caught my eye

The trail is made even quieter by the pine needles which muffled my footsteps

I thought this pre sunset would be all there was to see

And old tree cycling its nutrients for new growth

Sun behind clouds but clouds are breaking up

I watched earth, air and water produce beautiful bubble art along the shore

The last bit of the sun disappearing behind the horizon 

Then lighting up the fluffy clouds that formed into a huge set of rays by themselves. 

Then being chased off by the darkness

I hiked quickly back to the road to beat full dark.  But when I noticed the sky showing near where an accessible trail went, I decided to take a quick look.  By this time, the sky was so dark, that I could only get the next images with my camera set to take hand held night scenes.

Going......

Afterlight reflections in a pond

Looking up from the parking lot

I started home, feeling happy that I had had an entire day filled with beauty. (I had explored Manteo that morning.)  Then, just as I made the turn to the the road my house is on, I spotted the moon rising over the beach houses.  So I grabbed my camera and got one last picture.

Hello, New Moon

And my body felt invigorated by moving for nine miles, at least eight of which I was hiking, all the while collecting beautiful memories.

Hike in Rattlesnake National Recreation Area

The  thing I love most about working in the northwest is the remarkable amount of public lands on which to play.  I had to go to Missouli, so chose to go bird watching in the morning, run some errands, then hike, before getting my groceries.

I found my way to the Rattlesnake Recreation Area and then noticed I had a plethora of  choices. And by the looks of the full parking lot, a lot of people planned to be hiking or riding bikes in the area, even though the day had turned cloudy. AND there is a separate parking lot for horse trailers.  Each trail is labeled as to who can use it.  All can be hiked, but on some ridden on horseback or bicycle.

Part of the large parking lot

I started off along Rattlesnake Creek which was running full, fast and loud from the snow melt.This wide trail was through a flat area and I saw a few families with children along here. I also took several short detours to get better views of the creek and look for blooming wildflowers.

I think this is large false Soloman's seal

The trail was wide, flat and well maintained along the creek.

Some of the signs along the trails were about invasive plants.  The signs and even the map of the area asks you to pull up ten of the noxious weeds and to check yourself and your dog for seeds and remove them.

One of the noxious weeds - leafy spurge

Soon I decided to leave this trail and hike up through Spring Gulch, which went up into Strawberry Ridge. But even here, I found a bathroom. I meant to climb higher but spent lot of time chasing bees and flies - sometimes I couldn't tell what I was chasing until I blew up the picture.  So I ended up turning before I meant to. 

A real bathroom way out in the woods

A tiny creek made for a much nicer hiking  music but was mostly invisible

One of the bees I found

 I headed down Stuart Park Trail, which parallels Spring Gulch.  Soon I was finding signs of the people who used to live in this area. Lilacs are always indicators of former dwellings.

 There were lots of wildflowers blooming, and most of them were ones that grow in open forests so we don't have them on the refuge.

Tall lupines grew in big groups

The first red  Indian paint brush I have see around here.

The longer I hiked, the smaller the trails became. I met several people - some hiking with dogs, some on bikes, and a group of young men hiking to the area where they are allowed to camp. When I reached another junction, I decided I needed to walk more longer, so took a trail that wound up hill.  This would not have been so bad except I'd walked about five miles already, sostruggled to reach the top.

Will this trail ever end?

But finally I got to the top and started back down.  Soon the woods gave way to meadows and I started to find Mariposa lilies among the grass. Some kind of beetle had also found them.

Only a few miles left to go to get back into the valley in the back left of this picture

The trail wound down and around and finally entered another wooded area.  I came out on to a road that was closed to cars - this is Sawmill Gulch.  There is also a narrow,  parallel trail that wound through the woods and was very popular with cyclists.  Finally I reached the parking lot.  This was a trip of about eight miles.

I was tired and ready to go home but still had to go grocery shopping. But I did have fun except for maybe the last mile.  Hopefully I can get back in shape be able to walk fifteen miles at a time.  Some of the prettiest places take a lot of work to get to them.

Saying Goodbye at South Llano River State Park

I need to be at Bison Range National Wildlife Refuge by Thursday, May 11, so I can have a day of training before helping with the Migration Day on Saturday.

But I HAD to spend four days with friends at South Llano River State Park, one of our best Texas birding sites and on one of my favorite rivers before I left.  This is another traditional trip that happens the first weekend in May to take advantage of the peak of migration and the river in new spring garb.

Bill and Bob getting organized Friday morning

I've had a wonderful time with old friends and friends I've recently met, including Bill and Carol, who I spent a week with at Yellowstone National Park last fall.  She was doing here last hurrah also and left for Rocky Mountain National Wildlife Refuge where she volunteers each summer.

Bell's Vireo sing their chattering song only around the campground area

I managed to bird all four of  the blinds and several of the areas that hold large concentrations of birds, hike seven miles with Bill, enjoy a couple of evening fires and a group supper and finally, get in a short paddle. Natalie had two dogs and we couldn't take them on the river, so I babysat them Saturday while she paddled and she babysat them Sunday, while I paddled.

A female painted bunting getting her morning drink

A black throated sparrow

Even though I've been coming to this park at least once a year for many years, I still had never hiked up to the overlook.  And I hadn't hike the trails in several years.  So it was fun to discover new parts of the park. Bill and I hikeed the perimeter of the park for about seven miles.  But, since we had also wandered around for about two hours birding, and I had visited back and forth, and done lots of miscellaneous walking, I managed to walk over twelve miles on Friday, according to my step meter. And, on the hike,  we saw a porcupine and the biggest armadillo we'd ever seen, both firsts for me at this park.

An old porcupine 

A view of the old  wildlife management area, now park where most of the trails are

A mimosa species in bloom

Big armadillo

Baby sitting dogs - It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it 

Sunday I got up at 5:00 A.M. so I could get all my packing done before daylight. I almost made it.  The last two stars blinked out as I was stuffing my tent into it's bag. I grabbed a quick breakfast of leftover tabbouleh from our group meal, threw my paddling stuff in Bob's car since Bill decided to not stress his ailing shoulder any more, and told Bob and Natalie I would meet them at the put-in which was the low water bridge in the park. I gathered up my tea, camera, and binoculars and set off.

There are hundreds of black-chinned hummingbirds in the park

There were still a few lark sparrows coming to the feeders

After a few minutes of solo birding, I  met up with several other friends also birding.  The birds were especially hot and we were finding lots of new species. We had orchard orioles, ladderback woodpeckers, blue grosbeaks, chipping sparrows, wood peewee, red-eyed vireo, yellow-billed cuckoo, a vermilion flycatcher, and other birds, including the ever present pine siskins and painted buntings. I had to tear myself away and rush the last half mile to get to the put-in in time.

We had lots of painted buntings around all the bird blinds

We had a beautiful short paddle.  More on that next blog. By the time we finally tore ourselves away from the last of the group, it was 2;00.  Then we had a seven hour drive back to Seabrook an , after several minutes of transferring my stuff, I had another half hour drive to Houston.  After getting my dirty clothes washing, I had to write this blog.

Now it's Monday and I am just getting all the pictures in this blog and will leave for Montana in a few hours.  I'll not blog again until sometime next week.  But I'll get you pictures of  our paddle then and will have lots to tell you about my 2000 mile trip, provided I survive doing it in four days, and the new refuge.

I'll be in Texas until sometime tomorrow when I cross the line into Oklahoma   A few minutes after that, I'll be in Colorado. I hope to get to explore a little of LBJ Grasslands this evening, provided I can get moving.