The Blue Ghost-Lady Lexington

The Lexington played a large role in our defeat of the Japanese Navy in WWII. She was almost sunk by Kamakazi's, but was repaired and lived on for many years. Now on display at Corpus Christi, Texas, she is now a link to the past for anyone wanting to see how our Sailors and Airmen lived during the war. The flight deck would be much too short for our modern Fighters, but is a good display ground for many aircraft, as you will see.

First, the Lex:
To the left, the super structure. Not a good place to be when you are taking incoming fire. It was a long way down to the Poop deck!

If the south Texas coast is in your travel plans, you need to visit this grand old lady. She served us well, as did the life blood of our nation who served on her. She stands as a tribute to our resolve in WW II. God bless our Veterans who served!


Here is a good history link for those of you interested.

Next, a good front shot. A bit patched and dented from war, but a good and faithfull ship.

The above views were from our balcony across from the beach about 1000 yards away.

We were on the top floor, so the view was wonderful.

Back to the Lex

The AA Guns were inreresting to look at.

In the foreground, 20MM cannons. The pods to the far right are life rafts. Seems a precarious location to store inflatibles. The ship also had a few 40mm cannons (5").


Next the aircraft on (and under) deck. New post coming up.

King Ranch mansion fly by

And in front of the KR Mansion, we have the Parking Dog.

And a nice cannon to warn off the bad guys.

Engineer's and Cowpokes automatic gate (Sorta)

This gate was designed by Humble Oil Engineers in the '20's ??? because they hated to get out, open the gate, drive through, get out, close the gate, and ditto on the return trip.

To the bottom right of the gate, there is a wood bumper strip. To pass through the gate, the driver eases up and taps the gate with his front bumper, and the gate swings open to the left, winding the chain around the pole ( hopefully not so hard as to to swing it around and wipe out a left tail light). If he didn't tap it hard enough, it left a nice scratch down the side of his truck.
After passing through, the gate swings closed on it's own when the chain above unwinds. It works the same going out.

Longhorns and BBQ beef

I got some good shots of some of KR's purebred longhorns. The one above has Character.



And below, some BBQ on the hoof, Santa Cruse breed. ( Developed by King Ranch)


They are all saying " Eat moo chiken".

King Ranch

This is the best part of our King Ranch tour. A pair of Crested Caracara. Not as clear as I would like through the tour bus window, but "OK".

We saw a few more while driving down here, but they either spooked when we stopped, or were flying and we couldn't get a clear shot.

As Stormy commented below, they had a young one on the ground that we didn't see untill we were under way. I fired off a shot, but it didn't turn out well.

Trip to Corpus and Beyond...

We decided to stay home on the 4th (to avoid reckless drivers) and headed to the coast on Thursday. We headed off for Fulton/Rockport as usual. I was a bit worried that we had not made reservations in advance -- but it was a good thing! Due to all the rain, the road that ran by the Aransas Wildlife Reserve was flooded. We were only planning to spend the night in Fulton and head on to Corpus, so we ended up skipping Fulton and went on.

As it turns out, it had been raining the night before, so the Indepen- dence Day fireworks display was held on the 5th! Shooting fireworks was a new experience for me. Lesson #1 -- ALWAYS use a tripod! As you can see, it's hard to hold still for multiple seconds. This is one of the better of the shots.

I didn't take a lot of pictures on Thursday -- it was pretty soggy everywhere. But I did get one really great shot of Marc -- very introspective.

The next day we visited the USS Lexington -- this was Marc's goal. He wanted to get some good airplane shots with his new camera. I'll let him post those, I only took a couple. The one really good picture that I took on the Lex was a shot of my favorite Veteran in front of the flag on the bow.

Kingsville

On Friday we headed for Kingsville with the hope of seeing some Green Jays -- this is the bird currently at the top of my wish list. I was a bit excited to read that Kingsville has named the green jay the "official bird of Kingsville" -- cool! They can be seen at feeders throughout the winter, and in trees and brush year-round... or so they say.

We went to Kleburg Park -- a possible good site. We saw lots of mocking birds (as always), sparrows, night jars (of some sort), and another bird that we couldn't identify (at the time).

It turns out the other bird was a Golden-Fronted Woodpecker (a new one for the life-list!). The golden front seems to be on it's forehead, as the breast is a creamy white. This first shot (above) may be the male, while the second (on the right) is the female.

King Ranch

On Saturday, we took a tour of King Ranch -- a very little bit of it! It was very interesting -- the largest ranch, still owned and run by the original family.

This was my last chance to see the Green Jay -- but I was disappointed. The day wasn't a total waste (from a birding perspective), however. On the tour we saw two Crested Caracara in a tree. A third was on the ground. Of course, when we stopped the tour bus to take some pictures, the two in the tree flew off. We didn't notice the third one until we were leaving. It was a bit smaller than the other two, so I'm guessing it was a juvenile (though juvies are not always smaller in birds of prey).

It was challenging to take pictures on the tour bus -- and many of the shots I took did not come out well. We saw several wild turkeys, like this tom. One was actually displaying, but I was unable to get a shot of that one.

In addition to the turkeys, we saw an egret rookery, with some tri-colored herons and a spoonbill thrown in for good measure. I might have seen a black-crested titmouse, but I'm not sure. The one bird we were able to add to our life-list was the Groove-billed Ani -- unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of that one either. On the grounds of the residence we saw a pea hen, and later a peacock -- they like to get on low branches so their tails can hang down.

Since the King Ranch is a working ranch that specializes in cattle and quarter horses, there were plenty of both around. I did not get any shots of the Santa Gertrudis or Santa Cruse cattle, and the longhorn shots I took did not come out well. However, this beautiful foal is a lovely picture of a future quarter horse.

More Rain

My apologies to everyone for not posting much recently. We've been out a couple of times, but more often than not it's raining, or certainly darkly overcast. We're pretty lucky to live up on a hill with a creek running through our property, so it picks up the local rainwater and carries it off to the river. But the Brazos river takes the outflow from a huge water shed.

During low water times, you can often see sandbars in the river. I don't think this is quite to flood stage, but it's getting close. If you look right down the middle from the joint in the bridge rail, you can see lots of debris being carried downstream.

We took our cameras with the intention of getting this shot from the I-10 bridge, but there is a lot of traffic and I didn't feel comfortable having us stop (even on the shoulder). So, while you can't tell it, I've taken this shot from a much more interesting (or at least historical) location. This shot was taken from the bridge on FM1458, just outside of San Felipe, Texas, looking south. San Felipe was the home of Stephen F. Austin and his original 300 settlers to Texas. Just west of this spot is the Stephen F. Austin historical area, which contains a house and a store (or the old buildings at least).

I read recently, that the settlers to the east of the river had a lot of trouble getting to the official settlement where business and legal transactions took place. When you see the river like this, you can understand why!

For more information on this historical area, search for "Stephen F. Austin" or "Old Three Hundred".

Yellow bird

Captured this bird on June 8th. Good for a first post here.
A crop duster spraying either fertilizer or bug spray. You can almost see the grin on the pilot's face. They love their jobs.

Dragonflies

I saw these two different dragonflies in the same place -- along with a butterfly, that I was unable to catch!

I have no idea what kind of dragonflies these are. This one might be a Great Pondhawk, E. vesiculosa


This spotted-winged dragonfly was found in the same place. I think this is a "Prince Baskettail" - Epitheca Princeps

Shiny Cowbird -- I think...

I believe this is a male shiny cowbird. We saw quite a few today. I was commenting to Marc that we were seeing plenty of individual male Red-winged blackbirds, but not the large flocks that we saw in the winter. He commented that was because they were breeding.

I think that's a good explanation for this bird. The female blackbirds are off tending their nests, and the female cowbirds are laying their eggs in the blackbird's nests, for the blackbirds to raise!

Killdeer

I've been wanting to get a shot of a killdeer for quite a while. They are very common around our area. This one was very cooperative and mostly just stood in that one spot. I'm guessing there was a nest nearby.

Lucky Shot!

We saw this Snowy Egret along Morton's Rd. Suddenly, I noticed that he was flying off. I didn't have time to re-focus, but simply turned and clicked! It's a little fuzzy, but I think it came out pretty well under the circumstances!

Coming Home

We had been worried about leaving the kittens alone for a long weekend -- we weren't sure what we would find when we returned! Well... the kittens were nowhere to be seen. The food had hardly been touched and there was still plenty of water in the dish.

Then we heard a tiny "mew" and found them. They were on the top kitchen shelf. Our cabin is a bit rough and unfinished in places -- they were able to sneak up the attic stairs and over the kitchen wall. This shelf is about 7.5 feet off the ground! There's no telling how long they had been up there, and unable to find their way down. After we helped them down, they figured it out quickly enough, so we had to block the stairway so they couldn't get up there any more. (Especially as this is where I store my teapot collection!)

Oh, and here's an idea of what I've been going through the last couple of weeks while trying to process my pictures. (Not my kitten, but you get the idea -- oh and multiply that by two!) Thanks to TedTam over at LST for the link!

Visit to ANWR

When we first arrived at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, we were attracted by the profusion of wildflowers right by the entrance. We both started taking pictures.


Here's a shot of a bit of the flowers -- notice the globe seedheads of these pretty maroon and yellow flowers. And of course, where there are wildflowers, there are butterflies!

This butterfly was about two inches across. I don't have any butterfly books, so I bought a "quick reference" card at the park's gift shop. That was a mistake, because this butterfly doesn't seem to be on it!

I'm guessing from the size, shape and "design" that his might be a member of the "Brushfoot" family of butterflies, and a possible cousin of the "Painted Lady" -- but I think this one is different.

On the other side of the road were several swallowtail butterflies. From my reference card, I think these are Anise Swallowtails. This first one is a bit "worn".


This shot gives a better view of the head -- the body is also black with yellow stripes. That wasn't clear on the reference card.

I chased this little guy around for a minute or two before he landed long enough for me to get a shot. He was really tiny, no more than an inch across if you stretched it out!

Dragonflies

In addition to butterflies, I also saw a lot of dragonflies. I have no idea what species each of these are (comments are welcome). I have discovered that Dragonflies (who rest with their wings out to the sides) and Damselflies (who rest with their wings behind them) are members of the order Odonata, which means "toothed ones".

Update: I found a great site with lots of dragonfly plates and pictures that is helping me ID these creatures. See: http://public.fotki.com/gstrick3/. The first dragon fly appears to be a "Blue Corporal," Libellula deplanta.

I was able to get at least three (maybe 4) different species. This one (on the left) appears to be an Eastern Pondhawk. All of these are dragonflies. I did find a great site to provide an overview: "Odonata: Dragonflies and Damselflies".


This dragonfly to the right seems to have a "tiger striped" body.





And this last shot of a dark blue dragonfly looks like it's body is "furry" -- but it's hard to tell for sure.




If anyone can recommend a good book on Butterflies, Dragonflies and Damselflies for the Texas area, I would appreciate it. Texas is in an awkward spot between "East" and "West" as most wildlife books are divided into Eastern US and Western US, and it's hard to tell where we fall.

Lazy Afternoon on Fulton Beach Road

We made our trip to Port Aransas in the morning, then came back to Fulton for lunch. And then, of course we had to feed the leftovers (mostly french fries) to the seagulls. (Marc's favorite pastime -- well, one of them, anyway.)

I love having the birds hovering just a few feet away -- it's the only time I get really good "flying" shots.

After we fed the gulls, we drove down Fulton Beach Road, and saw this wonderful heron sitting on a pier.













A little further down, we came upon a group of birds having their mid-day nap. This juvenile pelican with the big yawn adds new meaning to the phrase, "Open wide!"












Here's another shot of the same pelican, possibly with a sibling.











There were several birds resting on that pier.








I especially like the geometric pattern of the pier at this angle as shown in this last pic.

The "Bird Walk" at Rockport

Just south of Rockport proper, they have set up a long boardwalk that goes out into the wetlands. There were a lot of big waders (Great Egrets and Great Blue Herons, a Tri-colored heron and a Reddish Egret (pictured below). But what really caught our attention was "Momma Stilt". This stilt had obviously build it's nest near the walk way and was trying to convince us she was wounded to draw us away from the babies.

Here's another shot of her with some good reflective action going. (Are reflections active? Maybe not.)





We saw a lot of flying birds that I'm fairly certain were sandpipers. Here are two different sandpipers. The smaller one is probably another white rumped (see the flying sandpipers below). The taller one looks like it might be an Upland Sandpiper.

These are both new birds for our life list!