More Things to do in Harlingen, Texas Area

We were driving around town one day running errands and saw a HUGE flock of birds/ducks at a local park, Pendleton Park in Harlingen. Sparky got all excited..."ELDY!! We have to stop at this park! Look at all those birds/ducks/wildlife!" He gamely pulls over into the park and prepares to sit for awhile so Sparky can capture some photos.

Black bellied whistling ducks

 It was one of the largest flocks of  black bellied whistling ducks Sparky had ever seen. This is their hangout here in Harlingen. (How'd you like all that alliteration?! The teacher in me can't help myself) There must have been almost a hundred, and they were whistling to beat the band, haha! It sounds just like a whole bunch of bad whistlers, lol....Not sure if they were looking for a mate, taking a migratory break, or if they are here all the time, but they were all around the pond in droves at Pendleton Park. They are a cool looking species. They rest on one leg. These each have a leg tucked up under their feathers. You'd think they'd get really tired just standing on one leg!

Another cool species we saw at the same park was the Muscovy duck. It's the only domestic duck not descended from mallards. These strange, warty faced male ducks are the largest duck in North America. When they are young, they are considered good eating! They've been around for a very long time. The Aztec rulers wore cloaks made from their feathers. You can see why in the photo below.

A mother's got to love this face, right?

On another day, we headed out to Bentsen Palms State Park, in Mission, TX. It was about an hour's drive. We just wanted to check it out and as we got there later in the afternoon, we saw that there was a

lot more to explore than in just a day. There are nice trails there of short duration, anywhere from under a mile to a couple of miles. There are bird blinds and trails that seem to attract certain species. We saw a green jay just a few minutes after paying our 5.00 entry fee! What a gorgeous SW Texas bird! Sparky is having all kinds of problems with the focus on her Nikon Coolpix point and shoot 950 camera. It won't focus despite lots of different efforts to fix the problem and beyond the obvious ones like make sure it's on autofocus, or do a factory reset and try all kinds of different settings. It's still under warranty, so it's going back to the factory. The first five months, it worked great! Sparky managed to catch the cardinal before we headed over to another part of the park.

We are going to head back with our bikes soon. There's a butterfly center just down the road from the park as well. We will report back on that soon. We'd like to say we have all our ducks in a row, but when you are RVing, there's always something else that is going to pop up to change your plans.

One of those things was we got to get our vaccinations so now we will be spending an extra week added onto our three week stay here in Harlingen. 

Eldy had been watching and registering us everywhere he could think of, and we were beginning to think we were in RV No Man's Land for a vaccination--not a Texas resident but here for the winter in Texas, Florida resident but not in Florida. UNTIL---he got a news article on his phone saying that a pop up clinic was opening up in Harlingen yesterday. It started at 8:00 AM. You had to come in and get a wristband. There were 1,000 allotted. You get a wristband, you get to get vaccinated THE NEXT DAY. It was about 2:30 when he saw the news article. No way, there's probably not going to be any left. BUT--Eldo doesn't give up that easily. He called the city health department THREE times to find out if they had any left. He got through on the third try. They had a few left, they said. We boogied over there, got in line, and they shut down the line RIGHT AFTER US. Sparky was #999, Eldo was #1,000. We were able to be vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine. Four weeks from now, we go back. So-o-o-o...with all this extra time in the valley, we should know the area pretty well by the time we get ready to leave in late March...Stick around, there'll be more to share! We love having you along for the ride, wherever we go....Thank you for reading!

Nature Abounds in Our Backyard and Here in Sarasota/Bradenton

Sparky loves it when it rains hard. All the birds come out to play in the little lakes and streams formed right by the golf course. The land is fast draining, so the birds are only there for a short time. They are right back along the edge of our lanai. We've seen flocks of cranes come in…And always the ibis….They feed so fast they are like little jackhammers, and they move along quickly!

Those ibis are so funny to watch! Sparky watched one butt another one out of the way while they were eating, more than once. Like there weren't enough bugs to go around after all the rain!? They look a little bedraggled, don't they?

They squawk at each other, just little squawks….

We had a fox come through at the same time, it's not the first time he's been seen….He rolled around and around on the grass after the rains, just thoroughly enjoying himself until Sparky showed up with her camera, then off he trotted. See ya, Mr. Fox!

And immediately after the ibis strolled quickly through our backyard, along came a pair of black bellied whistling ducks.

Sparky has been over to the Celery Fields in Sarasota, near Sun 'n' Fun,  a couple of weeks ago… The fields are the county's primary storm water collection. A 300+ acre site of wetlands, grasslands, two boardwalks and an observation hill is there to climb where you can get a beautiful view of the surrounding habitats. It exists for everyone's pleasure, particularly birders. Over 100 acres of wetlands has been restored with over 20,000 plants established. The Audubon Society is really amping up the place for better bird viewing. A new visitor center is going to be built there, they are adding restrooms and the big hill has had lots and lots of trees and palms planted for the more than 200 bird species that have been spotted in the wetlands and grassy fields of the former celery fields.

Sparky likes to walk the boardwalks or sit at the gazebo and see what's happening…Today, a lot! She spotted a female limp kin with a nest of babies! Four babies to be exact, but here you can only see two.

Sparky watched for quite awhile….And chatted with some serious birders who had some amazing camera equipment. But Sparky is satisfied with her little Canon powershot.

It's always amazing to see the little babies doing what they need to do instinctively.

The mother was out a little ways from the nest, but not too far. She seemed to be keeping an eye on the little ones as she fed.

Purple gallinules were in sight….at least one, anyway…

A tri color heron was watching and waiting for fish….

And, there was a family of ducks. The babies appeared just about to be grown. They were having a ball sloshing through some serious muck. You could hear them slopping through the mud and they had no trouble finding enough to eat, with their little ducktail fannies repeatedly bobbing up and down as they ate.

When Sparky got closer to the action, the mom moved away from the babies to distract, and posed in the late afternoon sun…..Looks like a mallard?

The last thing Sparky saw was a good sized black snake…ugh!

But, that's a part of nature….Just not Sparky's favorite thing to see! Sparky stamped on the ground and it boogied out of there. Good thing it did, or Sparky would have boogied….It was getting late, time for one more last shot, the mom limp kin hopped up onto the boardwalk railing and made sure we weren't bothering her little chicks on the other side.

Sparky will definitely be back to the Celery Fields again soon!  Bye for now…..