Walking at Bentsen in November

Hello, everyone.

As you all realize, life went on while the series on Israel was being posted. I propose to pick up some of those bits in the next several posts.

We went walking in Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park after we returned. It was a glorious day for wildlife viewing!

One of the flock of turkeys that were attending the bird feeder next to the road through the park. This is the first time we had ever seen turkeys there. The flock must have been around 8 in number.

And at the blind there were a mother and a baby and two adult male javelina. (One may have been the father. He ran the other one off with much loud clacking of teeth.) They socialized, drank water from the pond, and generally hung around for a while.

This n that: pictures

Hello, everyone.

I've been coasting on Easter and doing honey-dos around the house.

A couple of pictures from before Easter:

The day we got out late to walk, because it looked like rain, and discovered that the wildlife had stayed in bed too. (At the Hike n Bike it had been raining.)

It was after 9 in the morning, and we really hadn't expected to see anything in the way of wildlife. Apparently this herd of javelinas had been staying in until the rain ended.

User tip for the Hike n Bike: at some parts there is levee above the level of the path, and sometimes the dirt surface of the levee is bare of plants. If it rains, the mud runs down onto the asphalt path and makes it slick. A word to the wise and all that!

This was growing along the Hike n Bike trail. I'm pretty sure it's a clover of some kind.

Hawk at Bentsen State Park

Hello, everyone.

The last time we went to Bentsen for walking, we took the very first turn-off from the paved road and wandered around on some dirt-surfaced trails. (This is the area called the Resaca Viejo trail.) Saw a lot of fallen wood, watched a male javelina run across the trail in front of us, and found, just before reaching an observation deck with a bench, this peek between the trees at a large bird.

Preening hawk

The so-smart camera couldn't take this photo, because it will instantly assume that closer objects are the purpose of the picture. Had to put it into manual focus mode to get it to ignore the branches and tree trunks that have been (mostly) cropped out of this shot.

More at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park

Hello, everyone.

We went back to Bentsen Park for some walking the other day--it's close by, and it's interesting--and discovered that even peanut butter sticks can't get birds to come out if something has them skittish.

When we got there, there were no chachalacas at the feeding station by the entrance, but there was a small herd of javelinas.

This was right by the entrance gate. Javelinas were the only creatures in sight.

There were some chachalacas at the bird blind. They were skittish, too, and left in a very few minutes.

On our way out, we chatted with the volunteer and she told us that few minutes earlier a hawk had emerged from a nearby shrub. That does explain why there were so few birds to be seen.

(We walked about 3 miles that day.)

Training Day 2: Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park

Hello, everyone.

Today we drove over to Bentsen Park for our walk. It was about 9 when we started walking--paused to buy an annual Family Pass on the way in. (These look like they're pretty handy. They're good for free admission at all of the Texas state parks.)

The park is in Mission--that is, it's at the edge by the Rio Grande River. There is a very nice restroom at the entrance, and a cute shop with various souvenirs and helpful ladies who will gladly sell you your wrist band. (By the day, it's $5 per person. Less for persons over 65.)

They appear to be one of the parks that's seriously interested in community use (a couple of camping sites and some picnic table areas) and handicapped access. Even the dirt trails were smooth, and often had some color or other of fine gravel on the top of the dirt or caliche underneath. Always spangled with long lines of Ant Lion pits! (These are small crustacean type predators of ants that dig a slidey sloped pit, like the monster in the second Star Wars movie only much, much smaller, and when the ant steps on the top edge the dirt granules slide under it and it slides down into the mouth of the ant lion.) There are a number of observation benches placed strategically near bird feeders or trees that are known to attract hordes of butterflies. There is also a blind overlooking one of the bird feeding stations. There were a number of useful signs to help the visitor locate things and a pair of historical-marker plaques near the entrance.

There is a hawk observation tower--with an extended, gently sloped ramp to the top. A person with a walker, if they could face the distance, could easily get up to view the hawks. An energetic mother could push a stroller up it, for that matter.

We saw various birds at the feeders. (The most popular feeders appeared to be the logs drilled with cups and filled full of peanut butter. Flat seed trays came in second, at least today.)

A woodpecker getting some peanut butter. The vegetation
was this dry everywhere at the park.

In-town wildlife

Hello, everyone.

I recently had occasion to do some walking in my town and passed by the city golf course. There was an egret on the grass near the water hazard.

View of egret from across the (busy) road

Other wildlife we have seen in this area, or in the city: yellow-crowned parrots and green parrokeets (not budgies) are known to live around here. On certain streets, they pose on the electric lines around 9 a.m. on Sundays. White pelicans are known to visit the water hazards of this golf course. Also whistling tree ducks live and breed in the area.

Tree ducks leading their brood to the drainage ditch. (They crossed our whole front yard!)

Roadrunners are not as common in town as out in the country, but they are around.

Roadrunner, using the patio crisscross as a lookout point!

And, of course, the usual jackrabbits, geckoes, and the occasional snake. Plus cardinals, mockingbirds, curve-billed thrashers, grackles, etc. etc.

In the (hopefully) near future, there will be a post about the Mission Hike and Bike Trail. We walked a lot on it while training for the Camino in 2014. One day we were there around 7 in the morning, and we saw a small herd of javelinas.

Seeing a different section of the Hike and Bike

Today we went to the Hike and Bike, but we didn’t do our usual route. My sweetie wanted to do “the levee.” I had no idea what he was talking about. “Levee” can mean any elevated long lump in the landscape, in practice. It turned out that what he meant was to take a left on the paved turn-off along the way, before we reached the bridge with the swallows. The blacktopped, elevated path was indeed a levee, as it was a good 6 or 8 feet above all the surrounding area.

Little though one could tell it with all the brush growing up. We saw brush piles where a tractor had pushed out mesquite trees in the past, but they were next to 15 foot tall, thick-trunked mesquite trees and bushy nopal cactus plants that must have been 8 feet across and 7 feet tall. So the brush clearing activities were all in the past. After a while we came to a place where the blacktop turned left and descended to meet the regular (also blacktopped) path that we usually walk. There was another path, though, just a set of tire tracks along the top of the levee, and we took it. We saw the biggest walking-stick bug I have seen in a good while along it. We got a good overview of the city’s project to install—I guess—water pipes along the road. Eventually we got the the road and found the turn-off that leads to the parking lot. That was steep, but the dirt was dry and the rocks in the dirt were not loose, so it was okay to walk down on. When we got to the bottom, we found a sign (facing the parking lot, of course) that said “Levy run”. And then I realized what my sweetie had been talking about when he said he wanted to do the levee.

It was a fresh, beautiful Monday morning, with very few people out. We saw a collection of cottontails, and a dove that was dancing on the path to lead us onward, and a roadrunner (paisano bird) that was dancing around between trees off of the path. I think there must be at least two, and maybe three, pairs of roadrunners that live in the Hike and Bike park. Along with the small group of javelinas.

On Thursday last, we saw a javelina boar, but he wasn’t posing for pictures and we didn’t get the camera out in time, so his handsome profile went uncaptured. (Darn.) Today, no javelinas, even though we got to the Hike and Bike around 0740.

Also today the new camera arrived. I will try to learn how to take good pictures to upload with it. Today’s pictures are still with the old camera.

because every Valley blog needs a palm tree!

The walking stick, next to my sweetie's hiking boot for size.