ON THE ROAD AT LAST

Day 1: Very simple goal today - drive 530 miles to Daphne, Alabama and spend the night in a motel.  No problem.  Perfectly executed.

I thought you might like a heads up as to what’s planned for the rest of the trip, so here’s the quick version:

High Island, Texas for migrant passerines.

Attwater Prairie-chicken National Wildlife Refuge near Sealy, Texas.

The Texas Hill Country to try and get a nice shot of a Black-capped Vireo that I DON’T accidentally delete this time!

Big Bend National Park, Texas.

Southeast Arizona

Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce National Parks

Up through central California to Oregon to visit with Matt, Alice and two granddaughters.

Washington’s Olympic National Park for Dusky Grouse.

Push through to Anchorage, Alaska, where we will meet our friends, Doug and Shirley Beach.

Kenai Peninsula

Denali Highway and Denali NP

Nome

The Dalton Highway (pipeline road to the Arctic Ocean)

Over to the Yukon and Northwest Territories in Canada for some adventures.

Much, much more after that.

All this on our Continental Drift while eating off “tectonic plates” and trying not to kill each other due to encountering “continental divide”.

Day 2:  Drove to High island, Texas, one of the world’s great passerine migratory stopovers, as birds crossing the Gulf of Mexico from South and Central America stop to regather their strength and eat some bugs or fruit.  Despite torrential rain and a couple of massive traffic delays, we made it by 4:30 PM and went straight to Houston Audubon’s Boy Scout Woods preserve.  Quite a few warblers, but after an hour, we decided to run over to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) to see what we could find.  Many nice birds, but the killer was stunning views of a calling King Rail.  

We checked out the beach campsite we were planning on using, but it didn’t look thqt good, so we went back to a parking area in the woods.  MAJOR MAJOR ERROR!  First thing that went wrong was almost asphyxiating ourselves be running the generator AND having the side vent windows open.  Two things happened: we sucked in a ton of carbon monoxide, setting off the CO2 sensor and much worse, about a billion mosquitos.  The mossies were so thick that you couldn’t see through the screened windows.  They wanted our blood!   We couldn’t figure out where they were getting in, but eventually surmised that they were coming in through the exhaust fan vent.  We killed hundreds and went back to the breezy seaside beach to park for the night, still loaded with the blood sucking little whiners.  We haven’t stopped killing them yet and they haven’t stopped dining on us.  My forehand with the fly swatter is pretty good, but the backhand definitely needs some work. It’s got to get better after this nightmare start. 

NOPE:  A severe thunderstorm storm came up at the beach and I was afraid we’d get washed away, so at 2:30 AM, I moved the RV to a motel parking lot for the rest of the night.  Unfortunately, while driving with my shirt off, I was almost exsanguinated.   

Day 3: A brief attempt at birding in the pouring rain at High Island before we gave up and drove southwest along the coast.  On the Gulf beach, large mixed groups of terns congregated.  Forster’s, common, least, sandwich and royal were together.  We took the ferry from Port Bolivar across the Houston ship channel to Galveston and went over to East End Lagoon.  It was mostly flooded from the storm, but there were some shorebirds and reddish egrets.

Next stop was Attwater’s Greater Prairie-chicken NWR, near Sealy, Texas, about 4 hours northwest.  We took a “back” road, thinking we would bypass the Houston megalopolis, but no such luck.  The beast had spread and suburban sprawl dominated almost the whole journey.  We arrived late afternoon and went for a nice walk at this beautiful tract of native prairie.  Added a few birds, but the biggest thrill was a coral snake on the trail!  Second one ever for me and first for Gale.  We also saw a lengthy column of leaf-cutter ants doing their thing.  We had no idea they occurred in North America.  We stayed at the refuge until sunset and then cruised the loop auto route searching for short-eared owls, which are common here in winter, but had apparently all previously headed north.  Maybe we’ll catch up with them on the tundra in a couple of months.