Laredo Birding Festival – Day 5

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!

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Some last images of South Texas

As I finished up the post yesterday about the San Antonio Botanical Garden – I realized there were a few more miscellaneous pictures I wanted to share from our South Texas adventure. Every day near sunset hundreds, maybe thousands of birds gathered on the roofs and electrical lines around our hotel in Harlingen. The last night I managed photograph some with some sunset color behind them. Many of them are grackles.

The next morning we headed to the National Butterfly Center first but decided it was too cold and wet for butterflies to be out and about when we got there. I photographed a male and female Boat-tailed grackle on the lawn and

The water lily in the little pool.

Then I noticed a red-eared slider in the water too. It is native in southern Texas…but invasive in Maryland. It’s included in the list of the world’s most invasive species!

We headed out for a state park in lieu of the Butterfly Center and then heading toward San Antonio. The one rest stop we made along the way had this forest mosaic.

As we drove into San Antonio, I managed a picture of the Tower of the Americas through the car window. It was built for the HemisFair in 1968 and I remember making the trip to the event with my Camp Fire Girls group; I was in the 8th grade.

One last bird picture: a cold White-winged Dove taken from our hotel window.

San Antonio Botanical Garden – Part 2

Like most botanical gardens, the San Antonio Botanical Garden is segmented. The Kumamoto En Japanese Garden was probably my favorite: the water feature surrounded by plants and rocks, a mockingbird scolding us (wanting the garden to himself), a sun and moon ‘lantern,’ and stepping stones for going off the trails.

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The Sensory Garden was colorful and included sculptures (like the armadillo below) that were positioned to be touched.

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The Fountain Garden included ‘Christmas balls’ floating in the water and a metal flower sculpture surrounded my greenery.

We came a garden that attracted butterflies. I managed to photograph Gulf Fritillary and

Queens.

I’ve always wanted to get some close-up Datura flowers and seeds…and there was a plant that was well positioned for that!

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Two little surprises in the gardens: a design made with pumpkins under some trees and

A chess set in the well of the amphitheater.

There was a special display of scarecrows while we were there – created my local organizations.

The garden has several areas that talk about the various water situations in Texas: Hill country, East Texas, and South Texas.  It was more rustic than other areas of the Botanic Garden.

We didn’t see very many birds – but I did manage to photograph a hermit thrush in a tree (right off the trail in the East Texas part of the garden). I was pleased since I am rarely fast enough to get a good image of forest birds.

San Antonio Botanical Garden – Part 1

We took advantage of having a morning in San Antonio, Texas before our late afternoon flight home to walk around the San Antonio Botanical Garden. The first thing we noticed is that the garden is still being actively developed with some areas barricaded either for updating or new building. We headed to the conservatories forest. These are very different structures than the glass houses of the 1800s/early 1900s. They rise from concrete peers – high shards into the sky surrounding a courtyard. The climate in San Antonio is mild enough that even the courtyard looked lush and green at the beginning of winter!

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There were sculptures in the gardens within the conservatories and the courtyard. My favorite was the ‘owl.’

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The conservatories were divided by climate types: desert,

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Primitive plants like cycads (l loved the color of the fresh cones)

And Screw pines (I saw the mature fruit in Hawaii and got a better look at the Phipps Conservatory, but this is the first time I saw the fruit at this stage of development).

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I can’t resist the unfurling of ferns

Or the tropical flowering plants and trees.

And that was just the first part of our walk around the San Antonio Botanical Garden. There’ll be another post about the place tomorrow.

Home Again

I am glad to be home again after 2 weeks in Texas! During the first week in North Texas, there was a birthday to celebrate along with day to day activities like walks to Josey Ranch and the plantings still blooming, a trip to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge…a lunch at an upscale Mexican food restaurant (some large baskets decorated the walls of the entrance)

And some wire art in the atrium of a medical building (noticed when a was chauffeuring to doctor’s appointments). I’ve posted about that first week.

Over the next weeks I’ll post about week 2 in Texas – near Harlingen, Texas in the far south where we made the most of the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival…. lots and lots of birds. The Harlingen Municipal Auditorium was the headquarters for the festival with lots of buses and vans heading out to birding spots around Harlingen between 5:30 and 7 in the morning: birders are always anxious to get out in the field early!

We flew in and out of San Antonio so the last day, I spend the morning at the San Antonio Botanical Garden…well worth the visit.

As we took off just before 6 PM CDT, I took one last picture from Texas from the plane: a sunset just as the plane climbed above the cloud layer. We were headed home.

Yesterday I was challenged with a lot of catch up activities: groceries, laundry, verifying my 2018 medical plan selection, signing up for training for my December volunteer gig (it involves a model train exhibit) …and trying to get back to the east coast time zone. I put off the raking of leaves until today. They are a thick carpet in the backyard --- all the leaves from the maple and tulip poplar and sycamore are on the ground and the majority fell while I was in Texas!