Monday, we were pleasantly surprised to travel on a prettier day than the weatherman predicted. We were in the mid 40's, with sunshine for most of the day. The only unpleasant thing, the wind.
We traveled 105 miles to Bay View RV Resort in Rockport, Texas. We are on site 159 for a week. The RV park has more amenities than we need, but it has some perks that we absolutely love, such as, lots of opportunity for bird watching.
After we set up, we put on our hoodies and took a walk. This is the first time since we left home that we have got some steps in and some much needed Vitamin D. Our stroll around camp today, got us 6 new iNaturalist species.
We went to town to fuel up and found a Popeyes, which we just had to partake in. We got our food to go and took the long way back to camp. As we were riding along Aransas Bay, we saw a Great Egret and an Osprey eating their vittles. Needless to say, our vittles were not pipping hot by the time we got home, but it was still good.
Tuesday, it was supposed to be sunny and 50 degrees today. When we left camp it was 35 degrees, when we got back to camp it was 43 degrees. It stayed cloudy all day. The weatherman was wrong again today.
We took a detour on our way to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge to look for Whooping Cranes at Big Tree. We found a group of Greater Sandhill Cranes foraging in the field across from the bay. A little bit further we found 2 Whooping Cranes foraging in the bay. Whoop Whoop! The Crane Whisperers, still got it.
On our way to Aransas NWR, we found another pasture with lots of Greater Sandhill Cranes. One of them put on a show with his dancing moves.
We thoroughly enjoyed the wildlife drive at Aransas NWR. For the most part, we stayed in the truck except for walking to a couple of observation towers. We saw numerous species of birds while touring around.
One of the other times we got out of the truck was for our picnic lunch. The refuge has a nice picnic area with a great view of the bay. It didn't take us long to gobble our meal and get back in the truck.
We continued our ride to Magnolia Beach to check out the beach camping. That could be something fun to do, if it was a tad warmer.
We had a lot more bird sightings on our ride, including a bunch more Greater Sandhill Cranes.
We made another drive thru to see the cranes at Big Tree. Both the Whoopers and the Greater Sandhill Cranes were foraging in the pasture. We must have seen over 200 Sandhill Cranes today, they are everywhere.
Wednesday morning, we headed to Mustang Island with sunny skies, temps in the 40's, and light wind. The temperature increased to the 60's today. Mother Nature gave us a gorgeous day for sight seeing.
We had a 45 minute wait to board the ferry at Aransas Pass. When we finally boarded, we were in the back of the ferry with no view of the water.
We went to Charlie's Pasture Hwy. 361 viewing area and saw a family of Whoopers that were a long way away.
We were pleasantly surprised when we walked the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Trail. We were up close to all kinds of ducks and other water fowl, including a Bittern and a Snipe.
We had our picnic lunch off the tail gate of the truck on the beach at the Nature Preserve at Charlie's Pasture, while watching Dolphins and shorebirds.
We took a drive to I.B. Magee Beach and checked out the camping as well as some cool wooden post covers.
We only had to wait about 15 minutes for our ferry ride back across. We were front row and center, which gave us us a great view of the birds and dolphins on our 5 minute trek across the pass.
We made a loop to check on the cranes at the Big Tree Pasture and found lots of shorebirds, wading birds, Whoopers and Sandhill Cranes. We grilled a burger when we got back to camp and let the Ferny Kat out. She is skeptical of this park, but I think it is growing on her.
We debated if we wanted to go to Big Tree Pasture to look for cranes on our way to Aransas NWR on Thursday morning. Good thing we did. We saw a lot of Greater Sandhill Cranes and 8 Whoopers. It was definitely worth a looksee.
A few miles before arriving at the refuge, we saw our first Bald Eagle of this trip. Another, whoop, whoop!
We spotted one of the biggest Alligators that we have ever seen on our first hike of the day,
We stopped for our picnic lunch, which we staged from the tailgate of the truck, giving us a great view of the bay,
We spotted 2 more Whoopers way out in the bay from the top of the observation tower.
We walked along the beach, enjoying the driftwood, and the birds, and saw 2 more Whoopers. These two were banded.
We hiked the Rail Trail on our way out of the refuge. We found a couple smaller gators than this morning's beast, but still very impressive.
On our way back to camp, we went back by Big Tree and saw some Greater Sandhill Cranes, plenty of shorebirds, and 6 more Whoopers. It has been a great day with temperatures in the 70's and sunny skies.
We had a leisurely day of sight seeing on Friday. We cruised around some back roads and the beaches of Rockport and Fulton.
We had our picnic lunch on the shore of the bay within a couple of miles from camp.
We went for a daily dose of Whopper/Sandhill Crane fix at Big Tree Pasture and was not disappointed.
We finally took time to stop and walk around the over 1000 year old, Big Tree. A couple of birds flitting around in the other oaks got our attention.
We continued our meandering kind of day to bird watch at the picnic area on Hwy 35. We found a lot of Savanna Sparrows along with a few Grackles.
We stopped at a pull off on Hwy 35 on our way back to camp to look for Northern Harriers. We didn't see any Harriers, but we did find a couple of Whoopers on both sides of the road. We have a new sighting area for Whoopers. After all, we are the Crane Whisperers!
Saturday, we took a ride back across the ferry to Padre Island National Seashore. We were lucky with our timing of boarding the ferry, but not so lucky with a view. Oh well, to drive up and drive on without any wait time is good enough.
We had a nice time checking out the beach activity. It feels so odd to drive on these beaches.
We took a short walk along the nature trail finding a few critters along the way.
We had our tailgate lunch on the beach watching 2 Sanderlings competing over their territory.
We did a few stops along the beach, then made our way back to camp.
We got up early Sunday morning, which was our last full day in the area. We got an early morning Crane fix at the Big Tree area.
We stopped for our tailgating picnic breakfast overlooking the bay at Aransas NWR. We watched shorebirds, deer, and dolphins in this low tide.
We went up in the observation tower and walked on the beach. We saw Whoopers far off and a few shorebirds.
We took the 9 mile auto tour and found the massive Eagle nest, but didn't see any Eagles.
We hiked the only trail we had missed this week, Dagger Point. It is the highest vista in the park. A nice 1 mile stroll.
We got fueled up and did a Wally World run before returning to camp. We had a good ole steak and baked potato for an early dinner then took a walk around the campground. We saw a few birds, but not nearly the bird activity we had the first day we were here.
Ferny Kat finally decided she might like this place and spent some time outside when we got back to camp. We barely got the Ferny Kat approval for this campground before moving day tomorrow.
