#Kite Festival Padre Island

[mbergen]

This morning we got up and went to breakfast at the South Hall.  We had no plans to do anything afterwards.  Well just like we do sometimes, we changed our mind.  We got in the truck and decided to go for a ride.  Today was to be the last nice day.  Rain is in the forecast for the next several days….Another small cold wave…..sigh…sigh…..We wanted to see where a certain road went that we had never been on……So we headed out of town, and ended up  in Rio Hondo.  We kept driving through the countryside.  We were always on black top but the roads were rather bad in some places.   The roads don’t seem to have the drainage ditches that we have back home.  The water level is high and the black tops seem to fall apart because of the rain water.  Well we ended up at Port Isabella, coming in the back way.  We crossed the Causeway Bridge to South Padre Island.  We decided to go down to the Public Beach for a Walk…

It was such a Beautiful day….

I took off my shoes and enjoyed walking the sand barefoot….

    So Many people were walking going both ways…..Up and down the Beach…There are hotels and Condos each way as you look in the distance.  Reminds me of Cancun…..lol…but without the waiter in his white tux and black tie that served us on the beach….The Waves just kept splashing on my ankles.  I was cool but not cold….Really a great feeling with the Sun shinning brightly in the sky..

We seen a couple coming with their dog.   It was a Golden Doodle.  That is the kind of dog Tina just got.  Dexter is just 9 weeks old.   So we talked with them awhile.

They were very friendly and just loved their puppy.  He was 4 years old and very good natured.   He just wanted to play….

We also seen a fisherman.  He said they probably weren’t biting today.  The waves were to rough….This guy had everything he needed on his cart…lol…fishing pole, tackle box and bait, chair and of course cooler…..so just go stick your pole out in the sand on the beach, sit down in your chair, take out a beer, and just relax in the sun….Now that’s the way to fish….lol…or at least relax….

  We collected some shells and finally decided to walk back…..When we got back to the boardwalk up to the parking lot, we noticed some kites across the road…In fact…..LOTS OF BIG KITES….

So we drove over to the beach on the otherside.  They were having a Kite Festival….It was so cool…

    Beautiful kites flying all over the beach…..Teams had came from all over, even Canada to participate.  We had stumbled across the Annual Kite Festival that takes place the first weekend in February…..It was so awesome to see these guys fly these kites.  It took so much strength and talent….

We walked all over the beach and enjoyed all the music and the gorgeous weather….The teams were showing off there talents of flying their kites to choreographed music.  I think the one that impressed me the most was the one by Lee Greenwood….God Bless the USA….That will forever bring back memories.  That was the song that they played over and over when the Space Shuttle Columbia blew up and the 7 crew members were killed.  By the reactions of the crowd, everyone was overwhelmed with emotion also…………………Now after looking up the Space Shuttle disaster, I found out that it happened Feb 1 2003…..exactly 12 years ago this weekend….. “We will never forget will we”………

Eventually we left, drove back over the Causeway to Port Isabella.  We took some of the back streets to just see the non touresty part of town….lol….We ended up at one of the back inlets…..

Some working fishing boats and residents boat docks, lined the water.

Some really cool sea gulls just sat on the roofs.  Probably looking for food…

We finally headed for home…..Oh gees….We didn’t take any cash….lol…..I didn’t even have my purse….All I had was my bag with my dirty dishes from breakfast.  Rich had the bank card in his pocket (and his drivers liscense)…..lol….So when we got back to Harlingen, we stopped at Mr Gattis …….They have a buffet of pizza and pasta, potato, and salad bar.  All for 12.99  for 2 seniors….Cheap……..

That’s all the Money  we spent for the day……$12.99…..lol….

  South Padre Island and The Annual Kite Festival….Outstanding…. This morning we got up and went to breakfast at the South Hall.  We had no plans to do anything afterwards. 

[just-layzing-around]

February 1, 2020

After enjoying the morning at Jackson Street Market Day in Harlingen, we drove the opposite direction to our new favourite spot, South Padre Island, for a kite festival. But first, a few pics at the convention centre - what a mural! I read that the whales are life-size.

[vacationsoup]

New Post has been published on https://vacationsoup.com/the-best-ice-cream-place-on-south-padre-island/

What to do? Get Blown Away by the South Padre Island Kite Festival

SPI KiteFest Jan 30, 2020 - Feb 01, 2020 Come and enjoy the annual SPI Kitefest on the first weekend in February. Indoor Kite Performance on Thursday, January 30, 2020 at 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the South Padre Island Convention Centre. Advance ticket required with limited seating. Outdoor Kite Festival on Friday & Saturday, January 31 & February 1, 2020 at 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the SPI Convention Centre flats.

What will you see? At the outdoor festival: A cloud of kites. Truly an amazing variety, so skillfully flown they seem alive. Some as big as a house, others with dozens of colorful streamers as long as one. In the performance area, an announcer calls the competitors. The kites like troupes of acrobatic dancers, wheeling, diving, marching in the sky. Some are not performers, but so large and elaborate. Just hanging from the clouds a feat of magic in itself. Giant whales, squid, golden gods peer down from above.

The audience, in a party mood, bring chairs, coolers, kids, dogs, and cameras.

Here is a video from a kite festival in Wildwoods, NJ. It's not Padre, but you'll get the idea:

[our-wandering-casa]

Winter in the Rio Grande Valley

Our first experience as true Snowbirds, we spent 21/2 months in Mercedes TX. Our home was the lovely Llano Grande Resort & Country Club. A large RV park with plenty of amenities and activities. If you get bored at this park it is your own fault.

So we settled in and enjoyed our days golfing, cycling, swimming and evenings of Cribbage & Texas Hold’em. We also enjoyed special events like the Canadians Banquet & Dance, Llano Grande Drama Club’s Dinner Theatre, the Canadians Picnic and a concert by the Winter Texan Orchestra. I also enjoyed afternoons with the Knitting & Crochet ladies where we made several afghans and blankets for the local women shelter. Barry did some enhancements to the interior of Our Casa taking advantage of the park’s fully equipped woodworking shop.

Also did some day-tripping, seeing sights in the Rio Grande Valley. Such as:

South Padre Kite Festival

King Ranch

Nuevo Progresso, Mexico

Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan de Valle

South Padre Island Beaches

Made many new friends. Snowbirds, both Canadian & American, are friendly and welcome. Most leave all their woes at home with the winter cold.  We’ve all come south to enjoy the weather, friendship and to relax.

Had a wonderful relaxing time. Our only complaint is the drive down in earlyJanuary and backup the end of March. we were at the mercy of the weather, which can be brutal those times of year. It confirmed our preference to meandering rather than straight to a destination.

[rantsandaves]

Audubon's Oriole & South Texas

Despite the cold, frigid beauty of Minnesota, Texas was calling my name. It was time to unthaw and pick up the birds I had missed during my first visit to the Lone Star State.

I left Duluth and drove down to Clear Lake, Iowa where a rare Yellow-billed loon had been reported. I arrived to be greeted by a nice winter chill and biting breeze. As I set up my scope at Clear Lake State Park, I was approached by a kind woman who invited me to bird with her group closer to the visitor's center and out of the wind. She introduced herself as Carolyn Fischer. I couldn't understand why that name seemed familiar until she informed me that she was the person who had originally found and reported the loon! I must've seen her name mentioned on the ABA rare bird alert. She had even better pictures on her phone than the ones posted on the ABA report, confirming that it was indeed a Yellow-billed Loon and not some distorted digiscoped photo of a Common Loon. We spent the day birding around the lake, but no Yellow-billed Loon was seen. 

I usually don't tell other people that I'm attempting a big year, mostly because I don't want to give anyone the impression even for a second that I might be a good birder or that I know what the hell I'm doing. But I told Carolyn and I'm glad I did. As we went our separate ways, she asked me if I was warm enough, gave me a hug and told me she admired what I am doing. It's moments like these-- moments where people I hardly know go out of their way to be so kind-- that help keep me going. I camped near the lake, and despite the freezing temperatures, I felt warm the whole night. 

From Iowa, I went to Nebraska as I considered the best way to navigate down south and to get a tire patched. I took this opportunity to meet a long-time friend who lives near Omaha. Robb and I had been internet friends since 2010 and although we were meeting for the first time, it felt as though we were being reunited. I took the truck in the next day and after waiting for many hours, they told me the tire looked good and sent me on my way. 

I beelined it from Omaha to Mississippi, making a short pit-stop in Penn-Sylvania Prairie in Missouri for a Smith's Longspur. As I walked through the prairie, it was quiet and calm in a way I had never experienced. It was hauntingly lonely and thrillingly freeing with no one around as far as I could see. The birds jumped up through the grass, reminding me of the way the grasshoppers in the Arizona summer fling themselves from the pathways away from your feet. 

Almost as soon as I crossed the state line from Arkansas to Mississippi, I was greeted by the balmy southern humidity. Back in Biloxi for the second time this year, I was able to see Mississippi's first state record of a Smooth-billed Ani! 

From Biloxi, I went west to New Orleans. I was magically able to get ahold of my difficult-to-find (more difficult than a rare bird!) cousin Ashley again. While I waited for her to get out of work, I birded the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in hopes of finding at least one of the Brown Boobies that had been reported around the lake. The Causeway is the largest bridge over water in the world, with two parallel bridges going north and south about 24 miles long. The northbound and southbound bridges have a few crossovers meant for emergency use only. These crossovers are not meant for watching birds, as I was kindly informed by a uniformed officer. 

I met up with Ashley who serendipitously had an extra ticket to see the band Grizzly Bear. We had a great night (maybe too great) and the next morning I tried again for the Boobies. I noticed that the two of the crossovers now had police cars parked, either waiting to catch speeders or help those with an actual emergency, but there were two empty ones so I could turn around and change direction without having to repay the toll. I drove for what seemed like forever up and down the causeway, when I finally found one Brown Booby at mile marker 16. There was no way for me to stop, but I'm sure I managed to frustrate the drivers behind me as I drove slowly to watch the Booby fly out of sight. 

I tried for Yellow Rails on my way out of Louisiana, and again at Anahuac when I arrived in Texas, but was disappointed. I found out about the Rice and Yellow Rail festival (Yellow Rail almost guaranteed!) about two days too late.

I drove through Texas the opposite direction from my very first visit, going from east to west. Driving through Houston to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge made real the photos and videos I had seen just a few months prior depicting the mark Hurricane Harvey had left on the area. The Aransas NWR visitors center was closed indefinitely due to the damage, but the refuge was still open to visitors. 

The first time I visited Aransas was in April. At that time, I had been on the road for a month and I was still processing how exactly to navigate this journey on my own. I was struggling with learning how to be a better birder, with learning how to be self-sufficient, and with my anxiety.  Aransas showed me Whooping Cranes for the first time in my life. These Cranes represented a story of fragile beauty, and I felt angry at my own species for letting these birds get so close to extinction. I remember trying to process all these emotions while sitting under Aransas' five hundred year old oak tree, staring at the Gulf of Mexico. I remember taking a deep breath and feeling so small by comparison to the sea, the tree, and the evolutionary history of the creatures of earth. And despite the chaos, I felt at peace. 

I had to visit the tree again. As I rounded the corner, noticing the other fallen oaks, I hoped with all my might it was still standing. And although the mustang vines covering the tree had been damaged, the old oak still stood. I sat like I did in April and I took a deep breath. Staring out at the sea again, surrounded by the damage of an unthinkably powerful hurricane, I thought about the role humans play in the ecological community. I wonder if we can save ourselves the way we saved the cranes. 

I met up with a fellow female solo traveler I had met in North Carolina. We got Tex Mex in her hometown of Corpus Christi and reminisced on our separate journeys. Afterwards, I set up camp on Padre Island National Seashore and fell asleep to the sound of the waves breaking about thirty feet away.  

Time birding in South Texas is always well spent. To me, it's paradise. I love the bright and vibrant Green Jays, the clamoring of the Chachalacas, and the almost overwhelming biodiversity. I was finally able to see Altamira Orioles and Clay-colored Thrushes-- two fairly common Rio Grande Valley birds that somehow eluded me on my first trip. I spent just over a week in the RGV and was rewarded with Sprague's' Pipit, and White-collared Seedeater fairly easily.

The Tamaulipas Crow is a Mexican native making in a rare return to South Texas for the time being, and a few had been spotted hanging out at the Brownsville Landfill. There is a strange symbiosis between the landfill and birders-- the Brownsville Sanitary Landfill allows birders into the dump to hang out and watch birds. I'm sure the sanitation department doesn't fully understand why people want to hang out there, and I'm not sure I understand why the dump lets people hang out there. To me it seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen, but then again this is Texas and not California.

I arrived late one afternoon and hung around until sunset with no views of the crow. On the second morning, just after sunrise, I arrived to see birders up on the hill waving me down. I had just driven past the Tamaulipas Crow! I parked as safely as I could away from the garbage trucks and plow-tractors and snagged a few photos. 

Although my trip to the RGV was highly successful, it was not without its frustrations. It took five separate attempts for me to see a Tropical Parula. I also spent many hours on several beautiful, clear days trying to turn hawks into Hook-billed Kites but my willpower alone could not do the trick. I tried to chase a reported Rose-breasted Becard to make up for the one I missed in AZ. I hoped for late Groove-billed Ani in Harlingen but no luck there either. And although it would've been an extremely lucky find, I still kept my eye out for Red-billed Pigeons. 

The highlight of this South Texas trip was the secretive Audubon's Oriole- a bird whose northernmost range extends slightly into South Texas. On my second to last day in the valley, I traveled an hour northwest to Salineño, a spot right next to the Rio Grande known to attract the Audubon's. I spent a few hours waiting at the feeders with a birder named Mike. We watched the Green Jays and the Kiskadees mill around. An occasional Sharp-shinned Hawk would fly in to try to snag a Red-winged Blackbird and stir things up. As we watched, Mike and I talked about big year birders, about being traveling bird bums, and about listing as a hobby. Although I didn't get the Audubon's that day, it was an extremely rewarding experience.

I drove back to my airbnb in McAllen for the night and in the morning I tried again for the Audubon's, but this time a little closer.  Birders I had met at the landfill told me they had seen an Audubon's Oriole hanging around the National Butterfly Center just a few miles down the road from where I was staying. I had visited there once before and decided to give it one more shot!

When I arrived, another birder told me he had seen the Audubon's Oriole the day prior, and it was hanging around with an Altamira Oriole. I hiked all around the property, looking at butterflies and although I didn't know their names I admired them all the same.  I sat by the bird feeder station and watched the grackles and house sparrows duke it out over scattered seed. All of a sudden there was a flash of orange-- an Altamira Oriole! My heart started racing. Maybe the Audubon's is close by! I waited patiently and watched the Altamira fly north along the path. I quietly and slowly followed, but lost it. I stood in silence for a second then I heard an Oriole calling. It sounded more forlorn than an Altamira. I turned the corner and there it was, picking at the old fruit that was set out to attract butterflies! It stood still long enough for a photo and I was ecstatic. I watched it for a bit as it was following two Altamira Orioles around the gardens. Occasionally one of the Altamira's would try to chase it off and the Audubon would give a sad-sounding call. I know this is anthropomorphism, but I wanted to tell the Altamira to knock it off, leave the poor guy alone! But birds will be birds.