My Staphylococcus aureus issue seems to have turned a corner at maybe 2019/12/04. And I'd gotten a recommendation for Chlorhexidine Gluconate which I started 2019/12/06. Can't really tell if it's helping but it sure doesn't seem to be hurting. Prior to this window the infection had been fairly crippling and I was afraid I'd be majorly trashed for the trip. Since then it's gone down to intermittent annoyance status.
But on the afternoon of 2019/12/14 (during the Army-Navy game) HM went out back to refill the feeders, slipped on some mud, went down like a ton of bricks, made it back inside with great difficulty and effort. At that point I thought the trip was gonna be toast.
Seems to have just been some major bruising but that catalyzed some back issues and he was pretty much total wheelchair material before the trip's end.
Me... For the trip I was in the best physical shape I've seen for at least a decade (ignoring the aforementioned neck issue anyway).
- My left wrist continued steadily recovering at a fair clip. It's back to at least 99 percent now.
- A side-effect of all that experimentation and practice I'd done with tripod assembly setup and breakdown was aerobic exercise and I was really OK on endurance issues.
- I'd mentioned my temporary paralysis issue back at:
http://www.kitestrings.org/post8358.html#p8358
There wasn't the slightest trace of it kicking in at any point during the trip. I deployed the Walkstool I think only once but just for a comfort issue and shortly afterwards stopped packing it for foot excursions. (Had a little numbness start kicking in at the Safeway however on Thursday - Day 2 back home. Maybe the return plane trip didn't do me any good.)
2020/01/07
BWI to HOU to - in rapidly fading light - HRL. At Harlingen rented a car and rolled to motel in Weslaco.
2020/01/08
After substantial morning recovery time hit a couple little parks in town on a rather gray day.
Valley Nature Center
There's something really close and loud which does an excellent job of keeping an adequate degree of dense foliage between us. Eventually get a clean shot at a US Great Kiskadee. OK, got the call down. And there'll be tons more before the trip's through.
Chachalacas. Anything but shy.
A pond loaded with Red-Eared Sliders, my first ever anywhere in-the-wild Soft-Shell Turtles, probable Mud Turtles.
Frontera Audubon
The wind's cranking and the place is totally engulfed with wintering Turkey Vultures. They're swirling low and close, landing, taking off. It's incredibly beautiful to watch but I shortly afterwards hear that local radio tower guys aren't overly enthralled with them.
Throughout the trip I'm surprised by how few and far between are Black Vultures. We're lousy with them here and they're the more southerly inclined of the two but nevertheless...
2020/01/09
We can still use a little downtime and, in the morning, I wanna kill a couple to-do birds with one stone in the morning.
Shortly before the trip I found that I needed to adjust the legs-spreading resistance of one of the three on my "Swarovski" (Gitzo) tripod - needed to be cranked up a bit to keep it from falling away from parallel during the setup operation. And that required two Torx 25 bits. (I had two with me but had to pull them from sets and that sorta thing makes me break out in a rash.)
And I'd run outta time to get a haircut the day before departure.
So about three quarters of a mile north of Frontera Audubon there's an Ace Hardware and Rick's Barbershop. And I start getting the impression that average Joes and Josephines in modern culture think birders are cool. They're interested in what you're doing and have questions about stuff they're seeing. At the second stop "Yeah, those are Chachalacas."
Then three crowflight miles SE to ELG - Estero Llano (pronounced "Yanno") Grande State Park - originally a Ducks Unlimited engineering project.
Sunny but - bad news - a wind advisory day.
There's a nice Visitor Center with a covered deck overlooking a big pond. You can set up a scope and stay there forever without getting too bored. It would almost be easier to list the stuff we DIDN'T see.
From the deck some of the treats... Wilson's Snipe, Vermillion Flycatcher, Anhinga, Shoveler, Snowy Egret. A Harrier (brown) keeps sailing around and terrorizing everybody - but I don't know how these birds survive 'cause never once in my life can I recall any one of them actually catching anything.
The wind's SE and pretty ferocious. The facility has a public use scope set up on the deck and it gets blown over. (Don't think it was damaged any though.)
I head out to see what's going on in some of the other ponds and areas.
Someone in the vicinity of:
26°07'37.39" N 097°57'10.38" W
points out the shop Pauraques. They're nightjars (Whippoorwills, Nighthawks, Potoos), nocturnal, hide out during the day exquisitely camouflaged in plain sight.
The setting is right off the trail, open forest floor, some brush arranged at the side of the trail to provide a bit of barrier.
The first one blows me away. Totally unobstructed, I'm damn near leaning over it, yet at first I mistake the tail for a section of branch / small diameter log with lichen growing on it. The second another five or ten yards up the trail I find on my own. Reinforces my hypothesis that camouflaged critters don't seek/utilize cover in which to hide. They want to be clearly seen but mistaken for some useless common landscape issue.
And in front of Pauraque One I had to point out the Rose-Bellied Lizard on one of the barrier branches in full sunlight. A few of those at ELG and Santa Ana but no other lizards or snakes for the trip. (I'd so hoped to score a Carolina Anole.)
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2020/02/17
This is a shot of pretty much exactly what I saw with Pauraque One:
http://fieldguides.com/images_hero/rgr-Pauraque-TEXAS-USA.jpg
by Chris Benesh from the 2019/01/12-18 trip. It may even be the exact same individual in the exact same location off the trail.
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Made it around to the top of the levee overlooking Llano Grande Lake. Wind up there was pretty intense and I had to be careful securing bags as I was setting up the scope. Also had to be careful with the scope. Enjoying a fair bit o' protection below... White Pelicans, Spoonbills, Stilts, Avocets.
Blow for lunch back under a mile and a half up the road, return for Round 2.
Screech Owls are nesting in a decaying building several minutes walk from the Visitor Center. I get a description and get to the right place but don't think it matches the description. So I wander the area and stumble upon a couple of staffer/volunteer types at a woodlands feeder station where some nice birds are coming in. One of the guys says he'll take me to the Owls.
After things break up he takes me back to the building I'd passed up and starts to describe the position - which, from where we're standing, is the far high corner of the East face. I start to hand him my laser, he refuses it and rebukes me a bit - explaining that lasers on owls is a no-no. And I'm thinking - "Yeah? Got some data to back that up? Or are you just assuming that these nocturnal birds are extra prone to being freaked out?"
The Owl (one of the Owls?) is surveying the area from his cavity - no-brainer to locate him.
So after we break up I sneak back to the scene of the crime and run a test. I certainly don't wanna significantly disturb/stress any wildlife but...
It's a 200 milliwatt laser and pretty bright. I start it at ground level and fairly slowly bring it up the wall below the Owl. When I get to a foot below him he looks down at it for a couple seconds then goes back to normal sentry configuration.
Half an hour later I repeat the experiment and he doesn't even bother to look down. Yeah, I kinda figured.
2020/01/10
Day is overcast, gray. Wind is horrendous. After the previous day's wind advisory I'd been thinking it would hafta go the other way. Back to ELG to continue checking things out.
Broke for lunch at The Soup Doctors - five miles to the NW. Four guys at the next table - local fishers/hunters. I eavesdropped on their conversation for a while then joined in. Clicked pretty well discussing regional wildlife issues.
Back to ELG. I wanted to give the scope a real shock test. Hiked back out to the top of the levee at:
26°07'25.29" N 097°57'07.02" W
I swear the wind was sustaining at fifty. Same crowd of birds sheltering below as the day before.
Had to keep a hand on the tripod at all times. Pointing straight into the SE wind the scope was steadily rapidly vibrating - and turning crosswind sure didn't improve the situation. And on top of that my body was swaying - so even if the scope had been mounted in concrete... In those circumstances my Canon 10x42 stabilized binoculars totally kicked the scope's ass.
Coming back down on the lee side of the levee I had a foraging Armadillo coming straight toward me. Either didn't see me or didn't care. That was my first ever - and, so far, last. I'd expected it to be the first of a fair many.
Further back toward the Visitor Center I picked up the first of many trip White-Tailed Kites.
2020/01/11
In the evening the 2020/01/11-17 "South Texas Rarities" birding tour group will form up back at Harlingen. So we'll hafta pack up and check out from Weslaco, dump the rental car back at Harlingen, check in for two nights at the local Holiday Inn Express, rendezvous for our first group dinner.
Finally some pleasant civilized weather, do another stop at ELG - short, under an hour, stay at the observation deck. Then East to settle in, reorganize, gear up...
