Anzaldus Park on the Rio

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Anzaldus Park is not far from the National Butterfly Center in Mission TX. It was used as a COVID quarantine area and is sometimes closed by ICE, but when we were at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival it was open and we walked around looking for birds. Our guides that had been there over the years reported that there were not as many bird as before the quarantine/ICE usage years. There was considerable noise from an airboat stuck on a sandbar (trying to get back in the water) and then the boat roaring around in the water after the finally managing to get free); it wasn’t clear if the boat belonged to Border Control or ICE…they appeared to be unfamiliar with their equipment and the area….just out for fun on an air boat.

Common Gallinule

Great Egret

Hybrid Muscovy ducks

Terns (probably Caspian)

Scarlet Tanager

I couldn’t resist a feather photo. I wondered if the feather might have been from a cattle egret.

Soft Shelled turtle

Powderpuff (Mimosa strigillosa) and Mexican Ash (Fraxinus berlandieriana) So far, the Emerald Ash Borer has not attached this species…but it may only be a matter of time.

We got back from the morning field trips in time of a late lunch. I remembered to take pictures of two murals on the façade of the Harlingen Convention Center near where we exited the van!

Filling a Day of Social Distancing - 5/10/2020

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Continuing the blog post series prompted by COVID-19….

Here are the unique activities for yesterday:

Nice surprise first thing in the morning: 4 irises. When I went to bed the night before, there was one open iris and another that was just beginning to unfurl. I expected there would be two irises open the next morning.

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But there were two more than I expected! What a great start to Mother’s Day!

Photographing a spent iris flower. The first iris bloom (that had broken off the stem and was in a small glass of water) wilted and I decided to take it apart to learn more about iris flowers. I quickly discovered that they are three types of petals…and 3 of each kind. Going from the outside inward: falls with beards and stamens attached, standards, and style arms. The falls are the largest and the style arms are the smallest.

I took some macros shots of various parts of the petals. They were thinning and watery…had started to degrade with age.

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The last picture is of the cut stem. (Reference)

Seeing two Scarlet Tanagers in the red maple. We are seeing birds we haven’t seen before in the forest behind our house…because we are looking more frequently. Scarlet tanagers are insect eaters, so they don’t come to the feeder. We didn’t notice any females, but they are harder to spot. I wonder if there is a nest in the maple. (The picture looks ‘painterly’ because it is near then limit of the zoom on my camera).

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Opening a new supply of bird seed. We used up all our bird seed we’d purchased from the local bird club. The new supply I ordered from Amazon came a few days ago. There was only a small amount of seed left in the feeder, so I emptied it for the doves to enjoy and opened the new bag to fill the feeder with fresh seed.

Links to my previous “filling a day of social distance” posts  here.

Estero Llano Grande State Park

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We stopped at Estero Llano Grande State Park after our walk around Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. The day was still relatively cold and getting damper…but there were still birds active. A Snowy Egret was actively searching for lunch.

We also saw Blue Winged Teal. The males are easier to identify than the females!

A Scarlet Tanager posed on a lamp post across the water. It was far enough way that I had to maximize the zoom on my camera – not the best picture but clearly a scarlet tanager.

A Tricolored Heron was fishing the pond

As were the White-Faced Ibis.

By now the Northern Shovelers

And American Coots have become familiar to me.

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The Least Grebes were a little too far away for a good picture in the dim light of the cloudy day…but their silhouette is distinctive.

We were a little damp, cold and hungry by the time we made a short hike. We decided to find someplace for a late lunch and discovered The Smoking Oak in Mercedes, Texas. Great barbeque!