November 17, 2021

My Blog’s 10th Anniversary

November 17, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

I started my blog 10 years ago this month. It was part of my transition from being career focused for more than 40 years. And I’ve kept it going – it’s an enjoyable daily rhythm for me. I’m savoring my history of the past decade in this post.

The blog posts from 2011 included a trip to Longwood Gardens and a long road trip to Tucson, Arizona (with photos of rest stops along the way) where my daughter was in graduate school. I stated the gleanings of the week and enjoyed posting recipes and photographs of places I was visiting. The new technology was a Kindle Fire; I was making the transition from physical to digital books…it would take several more years to complete the transition and I’d graduated from the Kindle Fire to an iPad, Smartphone (and laptop) for reading. Some of my favorite posts form 2011 include: Recipe of the Week: Homemade Soup for a Cold Day, Water Lily Pictures, and 10 Cosmetics from the Kitchen.

In 2012, I started the monthly ‘10 days of little celebrations’ and experienced the trauma of my parents getting older…beginning to experience substantial health problems. We added a bird feeder on our deck – visible from my office window and I started enjoying birdwatching through the window. Some of my favorite posts include: Birds from my Office Window, Gray Day Reflections, Yucca Seed Pods, and Ten Days of Little Celebrations - November 2012.

The next year I started the zooming and free eBooks posts. Over the years my camera’s optical zoom capabilities have improved dramatically and I enjoy using it to get better images. By this time, I was almost completely transitioned to digital books too. We made a road trip to Florida for a satellite launch at Cape Canaveral and I got my first close view of Sandhill Cranes in the Orlando airport cell phone lot waiting for my daughter to arrive. Some of my favorite posts close to that anniversary include: 3 Free eBooks - December 2013, Sandhill Cranes in Florida - November 2013, Herons in Florida - November 2013, and Zooming - December 2013.

In 2014, I started my effort to reduce the ‘stuff’ we had accumulated from living for more than 25 years in our house. My volunteer work has gradually increased…and would be easily sustained until the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of my favorite posts from the end of 2014 include: The Grand Cleanout - December 2014, December Sunrise, and Fall Field Trips.

The big event at the end of 2015 was our travel to the big island of Hawaii…including a day trip to the top of Maunakea. It was an wonderful experience but I find myself wondering if I ever want to take a long flight like that again.

2016 was our first birding festival – the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache. We also discovered the Bald Eagles at Conowingo Dam, closer to home. I started my monthly Zentangle posts. Here are some sample posts: Highlights of 2016, Conowingo - December 2016, Zentangle® – November 2016, and First Day at Bosque del Apache.

I started the monthly eBotantical Prints posts in November 2017. I’d been browsing historical botanical books in the last decade of my career and was beginning to figure out a way to share my list. At the time I thought that I had about exhausted the supply, but I’ve continued to add 20 or so books every month until there are now over 2,200 books on the list!

In 2018 we attended our second Festival of the Cranes in New Mexico then enjoyed the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival early in 2019.

In the last few months of 2019, there was a last road trip with my parents at Thanksgiving. We enjoyed the Christmas lights near home and planned for a birding festival in Laredo, TX in the early part of 2020.

As we were coming back from the Laredo birding festival, COVID-19 was in the news and soon we were ‘staying at home as much as possible’. By November 2020, we were anticipating that a vaccine was going to become available and the pandemic would end. We were doing virtual birding festivals and otherwise keeping ourselves happy at or close to home.

And here I am in November 2021, still not like I was pre-pandemic. I enjoy many of the same things I have in the past 10 years, but I am not out venturing into crowds…not flying. I am facing a health challenge of my own (cancer). My parents are home bound in Texas, and I have made visiting them my rationale for 3 road trips since the spring when I became fully vaccinated. At this point, it is not the pandemic that causes most of my anxiety, but the changed behavior (sometimes abrasive and violent) of people under stress that has become so apparent over the past year.

The blog continues…it’s a way to document my present….and notice the subtle changes in the way I am ‘living well.’

February 25, 2021

Ten Little Celebrations – February 2021

February 25, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

The biggest celebrations of February 2021 were about my family surviving very cold weather in Missouri and Texas relatively unscathed…..and everyone staying well for another month. Of course – there were a myriad of little celebrations. I easily list one every day – and sometimes choosing what to record is a challenge!

There were more notations than usual about food in February. Some were experiments that were yummy…others were opportunistic:

*Snow ice cream*. We had enough snow this month to make snow ice cream. I always wait for the snow to get at least 3-4 inches deep…then collect the top inch for the snow ice cream. I collect a bowl full then add half and half, chipped peppermint candy/sugar, and vanilla. It’s one of the few times I use my old electric mixer! The challenge is to make only as much as my husband and I can consume right away…we usually each manage a large bowl full. …celebrating a snow day favorite

Broccoli with orange marmalade glaze. When it’s cold outside, I rarely want salad….this experiment was an easy way to have a ‘hot’ equivalent. I cut up broccoli just as I would for salad, tossed it over a spoonful of orange marmalade in a bowl and microwaved it for a minute or so. A quick stir to coat the broccoli with the melted marmalade, and it was ready to eat! …celebrating ‘hot’ versions of salads

Microwave apple with oatmeal and pecans. I bought a large bag of apples that my husband did not like as well as I thought he would, so I was looking for ways to use them. Breakfast in a bowl seemed to be a good option. I put about ½ cup almond milk in a microwavable bowl then 1/3 cup oatmeal, some brown sugar and cinnamon, a cut up apple, some chopped pecans. Microwave for a minute….stir…microwave for another 30 seconds to a minute…and enjoy. I’ve had it for breakfast several times but realize it would taste good to me any time of day! ….celebrating a new ‘comfort food’

Hot chocolate smoothie. I like smoothies and started experimenting with heating them up. My favorite is made with almond milk, chocolate protein powder, cocoa, banana, and kale. I make it the usual way in the Ninja then put it in a Pyrex measuring cup to heat in the microwave. I stir is several times while I heat…it thickens a bit. ….celebrating a decadent (healthy) treat

There were photography entries on my list too….some attempts that produced images to celebrate.

Snowflakes. There were several snow day during the month so I got several opportunities. I learned to pay attention to the temperature; in general – lower is better! …celebrating the challenge of macro photography outdoors in the snow

High key. This is an example of learning something new….being inspired…and lucky enough to create some interesting images almost immediately! …celebrating learning something new – well enough to be ‘dangerous’

And then there was the variety in the rest of the list:

Multiple virtual birding festivals in one day: Niagara, Laredo, and Bosque del Apache. It was almost overwhelming. We ended up saving some of the webinars until the next day. I was not ‘in the field’ but something that would have been physically impossible: New York/Canada – Texas – New Mexico all in one day! …celebrating the wonders of virtual travel

2021 02 01 IMG_3560 (3).jpg — ***Quiet snowy Sunday***. Sometimes it’s good to have a day to just enjoy the scenery from our windows! …celebrating home

A warmer day in Maryland that Texas or Missouri. Texts were flying across states…the family checking in…worried about water pipes breaking or loosing electricity. My family was lucky enough to come through with relatively few problems! …celebrating family sharing during times of near/potential crisis.

Curbside groceries. I have noticed how different it is from last spring. The shoppers are faster (probably more experienced) and the supply in the store is better. It will be wonderful to shop for my own groceries again but for now I am….celebrating the curbside pickup grocery service.

February 09, 2021

Red-Shouldered Hawk

February 09, 2021/ Gwen Morrison

Sometimes the more frequent handwashing results in a surprise observation through the window above my kitchen sink. After putting away some groceries last week…just as I was finishing up the soap and water routine, I glanced at the sycamore tree and saw a larger bird that I expected there. It was a red-shouldered hawk! I alerted my husband and he grabbed his camera to try to get a picture. I went upstairs to my office because all my cameras were there. I got three pictures from my office window before it flew down into the chaos garden at the base of the sycamore…not visible from my vantage point upstairs.

My husband got a picture too, but he groused that the window had too much glare.

It was the most exciting minute of our day!

There are two virtual birding festivals coming up this weekend…visual treats for the Valentines weekend:

The Niagara birding festival is free – Feb 12-14 - http://www.birdsontheniagara.org/ - 19 species of gulls….sometimes arctic species like snowy owls.

The Laredo birding festival is $25 – Feb 13 – this is the one we went to last year just as the pandemic was beginning – not sure how much will be virtual local field trips but that area is very unique with lots of tropical and subtropical birds…I got the best look ever of a great horned owl there….and road runners…and an Audubon’s oriole and white pelicans feeding together (like a ballet, all dipping their heads to feed in unison) https://riograndeinternationalstudycenter.formstack.com/forms/9th_virtual_laredo_birding_festival

I like the little surprise of seeing a bird I don’t expect to see in our backyard…gives a little serendipity to the day. It’s also a good feeling to realize that I am learning to recognize birds that I didn’t a few years ago. The pandemic has given us all a time out….and an extreme ‘learning experience.’ I am choosing to focus on the positive lessons.

December 31, 2020

Most Memorable of 2020

December 31, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Looking back on 2020 – there is so much that was different than prior years. There has not been a year of my life with so many significant types of upheaval: COVID-19 pandemic, environmental disasters (fires, hurricanes), racial strife, and strident politics. Today I am writing about the way this year was different for me as an individual with those upheavals as the broader situation.

Early year travel…then no travel. In prior years, I enjoyed travel throughout the year – being away from home a week or less at a time and daytrips. My original plan for 2020 was to spend a week of each month in Texas with my family. The early part of the year started out on that plan – a visit with family and a birding festival in Laredo, TX in late January and early February. We talked with an HHS person in the San Antonio airport; she was headed to the base where some of the first cruise ship passengers were arriving for their quarantine period. Once we got home, we hoped the virus was going to be limited to the few groups from cruise ships that were talked about in the news….and we started paying more attention. It quickly became apparent that telephone calls and Zoom meetings would have to take the place of the trips to Texas. We did some 2-3 hour outings for some outdoor time in the fall; we wore masks even outdoors and distanced from others; now that the infection rate is higher in our area and it’s often too cold to be outdoors for very long, we are not attempting more than walks around our neighborhood.

The Pandemic. By March, we had an inkling that COVID-19 was not going way and that there was more around in the community that anticipated. The grocery stories started having shortages of toilet paper and disinfecting products and hand sanitizer. Fortunately, we had an adequate supply of those to last until the stores had them again (although maybe not the brands we bought previously – what happened to Formula 409?). I went to an ‘over 65’ shopping hour at a local grocery in March and it was crowded enough that it scarred me into switching to grocery delivery for 2 months. I tried to keep 2-3 weeks of food in the house at all times. We bought over the counter medications that might help symptoms if we got sick. By the summer I was comfortable going to the grocery store again – masked and going at 6:30 AM every other week and, now, extending to every three weeks. We do curbside pickup at some local stores and restaurants. My husband has virtual and in-person appointments with his doctors, but we both delayed routine optometrist and dental checkups that started to be due; those appointments and my annual physical can wait until after we are vaccinated.

Cultural, environmental, and political drama. The pandemic would have made this a challenging year but with the cultural, environmental, and political drama happening as well – the news was overwhelmingly bad…traumatically bad. The trauma of seeing the murder of George Floyd by a policeman brought to the consciousness of the country that racial equality before the law is not something the US has achieved…and the varied response to the event showed us more about how deep the challenge runs in our culture…and highlighted other manifestations of inequality in our country. Because of our ‘stay at home’ strategy during the pandemic, we didn’t witness any unrest – but the news prompted some donations and solidified our votes in November. There were environmental disasters – fires in the west, hurricanes on the Gulf Coast; neither impacted us directly in Maryland, but it was very easy to be traumatized imaging how awful it must be for people trying to take precautions to not get COVID-19 but having to evacuate and then returning to find their home gone or damaged. The political drama – much of it seemingly intentionally done to sustain a level of chaos – continued through the end of the year; I became more angry as time went on that the leadership of the country – in a year of extreme national stress – seemed to be acting to increase the trauma.

Virtual birding festivals and conferences. I saved some positive things to write about for the last of this post….we all need something positive to sustain ourselves. My husband and I both enjoyed virtual birding festivals and conferences in 2020. They added variety to our weeks; we appreciated the work of the teams that made the transition to virtual because they took us away from our immediate environment (not quite as good as travel but the best we were going to do during the pandemic). We hope to be back to some in-person events in the second half of 2021. The ones we did virtually in 2020 were:

May – Cape May Spring Festival (New Jersey)
June – Mid-Atlantic Climate Change Education Conference
July – Get into your sanctuary (NOAA)
July and August – Sara Via Climate and Sustainability Webinars
September – Yampa Valley Crane Festival (Colorado)
September – Puget Sound Bird Fest (Washington)
October – Cape May Fall Festival (New Jersey)
October – Hawaii Island Festival of Birds
November – Crane Fiesta (New Mexico)
November – Patuxent River Conference Reflections
December – Maryland Water Monitoring Conference
December - AGU

At home. I spent more time at home this year than every before in my life (that I can remember…maybe I spent more time at home from birth to 4 years old). It’s been different but not hard. The house is well situated with forest to the back and a 30-year-old neighborhood street to the front with lots of trees as old as the houses; the views from the windows are all good – and there is wild life (birds (including an occasional wild turkey!), squirrels, deer, chipmunks, and racoons (seen only on the bird feeder cam in the wee hours of the morning)). Individuals and couples take walks…the neighborhood does not feel vacant or isolated. Inside - my husband and I have plenty of room to enjoy our individual projects/activities then be together for meals and shared activities…settling into a comfortable way of living in the house together and probably becoming more synchronized emotionally than we have since early in our marriage – simply because we are around each other more.

Conscious efforts to sustain healthy mental and physical health. As we’ve gotten older, we have become more intentional about our lifestyle – making sure we get enough exercise…eat healthy…assess our feeling and act to keep them positive. During this year – we have increased our focus. I had time to process the bounty of the CSA season (June-October) and am just now beginning to see that we have space in the freezer again. We eat well but keep our portion sizes reasonable; we haven’t gained weight…maybe we’ve lost a few pounds. We both try to get some outdoor time as frequently as we can – walks, yard work, reading on the deck, photography (stars/planets, sun, plants, animals, and snowflakes) etc. It was easier before it got cold. More of our exercise has shifted indoors at this point. We do things to brighten our mood – flowers, purchases to use for projects (mounted insects, clickers and magnifiers for cell phone photography), special pens, special food – things to make each day a little different.

Overall – at the end of 2020, I am feeling optimistic about 2021 and pleased that my husband and I have responded with resilience to the changes in our lives during the past year. We had ups and downs but on the whole managed to sustain ourselves and to enjoy parts of every day (for me it was easier when the television was off, and I wasn’t reading my news feeds).

February 26, 2020

Ten Little Celebrations – February 2020

February 26, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

So many things to celebrate in February…I’ve picked my top 10 that are in roughly chronological order during the month.

I started out the month in Carrollton, Texas.

2020 02 IMG_7856 (10).jpg — **Red Yucca.** The seed pods always look interesting to me. I like their curves and points. The warm brown and burnt black colors.

Fried catfish and okra. Sometimes a high-fat splurge is OK….delicious.

A sunny and warm day. In February, the days are often gray and cold….so when the weather bucks the trend…it’s time to get outdoors to celebrate.

The Laredo Birding Festival was not that long…but there was something to celebrate every day.

2020 02 IMG_4880 (2).jpg — **Great Horned Owls**. We saw these owls on two days! What a thrill.

Sunrise on the Rio Grande. Celebrating the start of another day….the beauty of a river that draws life to a dry area.

2020 02 IMG_3928 (5).jpg — **American White Pelicans ballet.** I had never witnessed pelicans feeding together in a coordinated way. They were synchronized and graceful…the joy of watching the natural world in action.

Audubon’s Oriole. Celebrating a colorful bird that just appeared while we were relaxing on a veranda after lunch.

And then we were home again.

A Day at home. I always celebrate being at home after I’ve been away. The view from my office window…fixing my own favorite foods…relaxing.

NISE Training. Robinson Nature Center provided a class on some kits they’ve purchased from the National Informal STEM Education Network. I enjoyed the gravity well (Exploring Universe Orbiting Objects) activity and hope there are opportunities to share it with visitors to the nature center. I also passed the information (here) along to my daughter since it had potential for physics related outreach activities her university does. So multiple reasons to celebrate this training!

February 23, 2020

A Pretty Table

February 23, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

The banquet/keynote on the last evening of the Laredo Birding Festival started with beautiful tables. The normal neutral shades of hotel linens had a Mexican flair instead – full of pattern and color from south of border…nothing so bland as an unadorned white tablecloth! We were celebrating the days we’d spent in Laredo already…but this was a great finale.

The buffet was Mexican all the way as well…entrees, salads, and desserts. I appreciated being able to load up on fresh veggies a bit more than I had during the earlier days of the conference…and desserts other than cookies (even though the cookies in our box lunches were delicious).

Everyone seemed to enjoy the last official items of the conference too – the thank yous handed out to the people that made sure everything ran smoothly and then the keynote.

And then it was over and we headed back to our room for a good night’s sleep before our travel day.

February 21, 2020

Laredo Birding Festival – Day 5

February 21, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Day 5 of our Laredo Birding Festival experience was reserved for traveling home – not birding. We drove from Laredo to San Antonio in the morning to catch an early afternoon flight. We stopped at all three of the rest stops along that stretch of I35 and it was a very pleasant 3 hour ‘road trip.’

The first stop was the Laredo Travel Center – outside the city, well past the border checkpoint. It’s a welcome center with interesting architecture, colorful tiles, landscaping. I managed one bird photo with my cell phone: some grackles.

The second stop of the morning was at the Lasalle County Rest Stop – across the highway from the rest stop we had made on the way down to Laredo and very similar on the inside. I photographed another of the informational signs outside.

I also noticed one of the trees that I had seen on one of our birding trips – blooming this time of year: Mexican Olive or Texas Wild Olive! It is hardy enough to be used in highway plantings but only in south Texas!

The last stop was close to San Antonio – the Medina County Rest Area. We had decided to rearrange some things in the suitcases because we thought mine might be too heavy; it was sprinkling so we did everything quickly. The rest area is smaller than then other two – more like the Texas rest areas were years ago.

They had a mosaic of the Alamo; many of the older rest stops had mosaics of some local place; I wonder what happened to the mosaics as the new, larger rest stops have been built. This one had some topiary type trees; the grounds people making the place special with what is growing there!

February 20, 2020

Laredo Birding Festival – Day 4

February 20, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

The last day of birding at the Laredo Birding Festival started with the van leaving the hotel at 6 AM! It was the earliest start of the festival, but we were accustomed to it by that time. The front of the hotel was alive with activity in the darkness.

Our destination was the La Perla Ranch, prized for its habitat and plentiful birds that thrive near its sensational water features. They had the name of the place on the chairs at the hunting lodge!

The first bird of the morning was a Great Horned Owl on an antennae. What a great start to the day of birding! The bird seemed to be very scrutinizing our van breaking the calm of the morning.

The sun was not quite above the horizon yet…I got a silhouette of a Crested Caracara through a fence. The bird has a very distinctive profile.

2020 02 IMG_4880 (4).jpg — And then we arrived at the hunting lodge the ranch provides…the sun came up. I liked the ‘barn’ birdfeeder in one of the trees.

A Turkey Vulture sat hunched in the top of a palm. Others were soring overhead. Some wild turkey moved rapidly our of my camera range…I missed photographing them entirely.

There were quite a few Meadowlarks although almost out of range of my camera’s zoom. This is an area where the Eastern and Western Meadowlarks overlap. They have such minor distinguishing characteristics; I’m just saying the bird in this photo is a Meadowlark.

We did some walking around ponds. Most of the birds were far away. Pied-billed Grebe are easy to distinguish from the Least Grebe (we saw both). My photo is of a Pied-Billed Grebe because it has dark eyes.

Just barely within the range of my zoom: a Green Kingfisher. The area south Texas along the Rio Grand is the only place to see this bird in the US. This one is female.

Cinnamon Teal were also on the ponds. The coloring of the male is indeed ‘cinnamon’!

I didn’t get a great picture – but was thrilled to see and get a photo of Peregrine Falcon. All the other ones I’ve photographed were on man-made structures (like bridges).

Sometimes I just paused and looked around at the ranch – glistening water surrounded by dry areas… wildflowers. It was a wonderful place to spend the day.

A Belted Kingfisher (female) surveyed the water from a dock on one of the ponds. We had seen a Ringed Kingfisher earlier on one of the larger ponds but I didn’t get a picture; I was surprised at how large it was.

How many birds can you identify in this picture?

The largest white bird is a Great Egret The smaller ones are Snowy Egrets. There are two types of cormorants: the Neotropic Cormorants are the smaller and darker ones; the larger and lighter ones are the Double-crested Cormorants. In the foreground are Ruddy Ducks with their tails pointing upward.

For the last picture of the day – a parade of Egrets (the Great Egret bringing up the rear)!

February 19, 2020

Laredo Birding Festival – Day 3

February 19, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

Our next day at the Laredo Birding Festival had us boarding the van at 6:40 AM for the Max Mandel Municipal Golf Course for its stunning views of the Rio Grande River waterfront with over 270 acres of old growth mesquite tree and vast arroyos. We road around in golf carts (part of the adventure) staying out of the way of a morning tournament between two schools. The golf course structures were newish, but the course had been laid out to maintain much of the native vegetation along the river. We were there just after the sun came up. The morning was cold, and strands of moisture rose from the river. We had good river views all through the morning.

My first bird picture for the day was a Pyrrhuloxia. There is just barely enough light to distinguish the coloring…definitely not a cardinal.

As we headed over to where the golf carts were parked, I photographed some mistletoe….I liked its shape and density compared with the branches of the winter tree.

We paired up for the golf carts; I let my husband drive; it was a new experience for both of us since we are not golfers. The Red-billed Pigeon is just barely a US bird….and the golf course is known in the area as a good place to spot them.

The Eurasian Collared Dove was also around. The birds were introduced in the Bahamas in the 1970s…were in Florida by the 1990s…and rapidly colonized most of North America.

We saw Great Kiskadees across the river…and finally saw one on the US side so we could include it in our count of birds seen at the golf course.

The couple in the golf cart in front us spotted some American Pipit foraging in a grassy area. I was glad we were directly behind them and stopped to get some pictures.

The Yellow-fronted Woodpecker is not one that we see in Maryland. We saw several at the golf course and the sunny day made them easy to photograph.

We had lunch and a walk at the 180 Ranch – a little ways from the golf course along the Rio Grande. We did see some cows near a pond we stopped at on our way into the property.

Lunch was at the hunting lodge; they had left some snacks for us; I enjoyed the only banana for the trip (they didn’t have any in the breakfast buffet which is my usual source of fresh fruit when I’m traveling). After the hike, we sat in the shade around the hunting large and observed birds coming to feeder and the brush surrounding a very lush (obviously watered) patch of grass. There were small flocks of Northern Cardinals foraging…similar to what we had seen the previous day.

A Black Vulture posed for a portrait before taking off again to soar. The area also has Turkey Vultures as we do in Maryland.

There were several Pyrrhuloxia around as well. They were more cautious than the Cardinals.

The Green Jays can be raucous. They are a challenge to photograph because their eyes disappear in to the black around their eyes.

The Audubon’s Oriole flew in as our group lounged in our comfortable chairs. Getting a photograph of it was the high point of the day!

February 18, 2020

Laredo Birding Festival Day 2

February 18, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

We were up at 4:30 AM to prepare for our day of birding at the Laredo Birding Festival. After a delicious breakfast buffet we boarded the van shortly after 6:15 AM and headed to the Yugo Ranch - currently owned and operated by 6th generation descendants of Ygnacio Benavides, who live by the same conservationist philosophy as their ancestor – where we would spend the morning and early afternoon. We parked the van near the ranch buildings, and everyone bundled up since it was a cold morning.

2020 02 IMG_3395 (1).jpg — There was a Texas Ebony tree near where we parked. There were a lot of seed pods on the ground around the tree. The birds and other wildlife had already finished off the seeds.

All during the morning we saw Vermilion Flycatchers – the bright red attracting attention.

Crested Caracara flew overhead and there were a pair in a tree just barely within the range of my camera.

When we made a loop back to the ranch buildings, I managed to photograph a wren which was easily identified later from the picture as a Cactus Wren. It seemed to be very interested in the chimney.

We drove out to look at some ponds on the ranch…and spotted a familiar bird: a Killdeer.

There were also Great Kiskadees like we saw several years ago during the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.

There were groups of Northern Cardinals…a small flock. In our area of Maryland they are usually only seen in pairs or males contesting turf…the small flock was new to us.

The high point of the morning was a Great Horned Owl. It was surveying the area from a tree growing on an island of the pond. It sometimes looked our way….decided our group was no threat at all.

Looking closely at the picture I took of a cormorant – I realize that it is a Neotropic Cormorant (rather than a Double-crested Cormorant) because the eye is surrounded by feathers rather than a bare patch of skin.

There was an American Wigeon just barely within the range of my camera zoom.

As we headed down the road in our van, there was a Curve-billed Thrasher in the road. I was ideally positioned to take pictures through the windshield of the van!

Also on along the road, a Pyrrhuloxia was spotted. For this picture I had to contort a bit to get the picture through a side window.

We had been seeing Harris’s Hawks and I finally got a picture of two that were near each other on a telephone pole. This species hunts as a team!

The next stop was Ranchito Road Lagoons. The high point of the afternoon happened at this location: American White Pelicans feeding in unison. I had not seen this behavior before. It was like a ballet and they did it for the whole time we were at the location.

A Black-necked Stilt and

Lesser Yellowlegs were feeding in the shallows.

On the way back to hotel we stopped at the Laredo Landfill. It was very windy (dust and some trash flying everywhere) so we didn’t stay long. There were quite a few Cattle Egrets huddled together near the entrance. And lots of Chihuahuan Ravens that were closer to where we stopped. I later wished that I had walked over to get a picture of the Cattle Egrets since we didn’t see them in any other festival location.

What a productive day of birding around Laredo!

February 17, 2020

Laredo Birding Festival – Day 1

February 17, 2020/ Gwen Morrison

My husband and I flew to San Antonio (me from Dallas, he from Baltimore) and drove down to the Laredo Birding Festival from there. We made a rest stop at the Lasalle County Rest Stop (southbound) and

Immediately saw our first stunning bird of the trip: A Greater Roadrunner. It was in the picnic area of the rest stop and then moved out into the parking area. It was a cold day, so the feathers were fluffed making it look plumper than usual.

The rest stop had well maintained plantings – some were blooming in the cold.

2020 02 IMG_7905 (10).jpg — The signage and windmill outside the building started the historical story of the county.

Inside the building were displays about the county: ranching, railroad, mining and farming. On the back of the hanging signs were metal sculptures that I enjoyed.

As I got ready to write this blog post, I checked Google maps for the rest stop and discovered that there is a short hiking trail to the south of the rest stop. I’ll walk around it next time I am make that stop (maybe next year).

We got to Laredo and checked into the La Posada Hotel which would be the hub for departures on the trips for the festival. It’s very close to the Rio Grande….in the older part of Laredo. A hour or so later we walked to the Laredo Center of the Arts for the 2020 Birds of the Brush exhibit – bird themed art from local schools. I liked the paintings on paper shopping bags and birds I recognized. The backgrounds were often what made the work memorable beyond the bird itself.