Anita, Ferny Kat, and I sat outside this morning enjoying our bird singing choir until the rain started. Needless to say, we didn't go on the refuge crane watching today. We sat around and had lunch waiting to go to Island View for the night.
We had a blast. We played slot machines for several hours, enjoying each others accomplishments. You would have thought we were winning big bucks with all the excitement we had. We all come out ahead, which makes for a really good time.
We picked up some grub at the grill and ate in our room. The choir of the birds this morning must have rubbed off on Anita. She did a pretty good job singing Chick A Boom, which Lauren secretly videod. He may need to send that in to The Voice!!, (Just Kidding Anita).
Monday
We stopped and ate breakfast at Waffle House on our return to the Refuge. We helped set up for the Ocean Springs Upper Elementary School outing that is starting tomorrow. We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon, getting our walk in and bird watching.
Tuesday
We decided to be tourist at Ocean Springs today. The white sand beaches at Ocean Springs are not that big, but they have a nice cement walkway bordering them and plenty of porta potties. A great place to take the family.
We walked out on the pier on the south side of Highway 90 and watched people, pelicans, and seagulls fishing. It was very entertaining, especially when one of the fisherman caught a big black drum that he had to walk to the bank to land.
We had planned on walking across the Biloxi Bay Bridge, but changed our minds when we got tired of the howling, cold wind. We will have to do that on a warmer day. 72 degrees with the wind coming across the water is too cold for us.
We found a couple of short trails to walk, then went to IP. We ate our free buffets and gave the casino a little donation.
We decided we needed to walk off some calories. We took a walk on the fishing pier on the north side of Highway 90 then we went to downtown Ocean Springs. We think Ocean Springs is a good little tourist secret.
We detoured back on Highway 57, for some much needed Crane observations. The Crane Whisperers saw 5. We still got it!!
Wednesday
We have been hearing all the birders talking about sightings of the Painted Bunting and Indigo Buntings at Dauphin Island. We decided to go see if we could find them, with an emphasis on finding the Painted Bunting.
I cooked our breakfast, washed the dishes, made up the bed, got ready, packed my sunglasses, packed my eyeglasses, and packed our lunch, Lauren packed up the camera and away we went. Just one problem, I didn't pack our binoculars.
This was our first real birding experience. There were several birders in the at Shell Mound Park. Everyone was walking slowly, quietly, whispering, and looking through their binoculars.
We sat on a bench and watch several beautiful Indigo Buntings and other birds eating seed on the ground with the squirrels.
After a little while, we talked with fellow birders. Lauren told them we were new to bird watching and had forgot our binoculars. They laughed and agreed with him that we had to be new to leave our binoculars. They could tell by my expression, I did not think it was funny. Before long, they were offering to share their binoculars with me. I bet we won't forget our binoculars next time.
We went to Cadillac Square Park to bird watch while we ate our picnic lunch. There were 2 buses of school kids playing in the park, it was not a good time to be bird watching.
After lunch, we took a stroll around Audubon Birding Trail. This trail has a lot of diversity, sun worshipers and bird watchers.
We made one last stop to Shell Mound Park and saw the Painted Bunting, a male and female. They really stood out in the blue sea of Indigo Buntings.
Cha-Ching!!! Mission accomplished, (even without binoculars).
Dauphin Island pictures click here:
Thursday
A little bit of rain this morning caused the Ocean Springs School to cancel their outing at the Refuge today. After a light shower this morning, the sun came out and it was a beautiful rest of the day. This left us with a quiet, peaceful, slow day.
Our Osprey perched in his tree right at dusk. Being he allows us frequent admiration we have named him Savannah.
Friday
We had 3 buses of kids from Ocean Springs School for their annual trip to the Refuge which has been going on for 20 years. There were 5 stations set up which included Fire, Law Enforcement, Cranes, Hug A Tree, and Nature Trail. Lauren and I checked out some of the booths and probably learned as much as the kids.
After work, we finally had to break down and go to Wally World. We bought two different block bird feeds and hung them up with the other bird feeders. One of them we hung on the claws of the metal eagle to keep the squirrels out of it. The birds sat up in the trees wondering what the heck was going on. It may take them a few days to get use to it. I am waiting for the brave soul to eat from the claws of the eagle.
Saturday
Thursday, we had 8 Visitors, All Day Long. Yesterday, we had the Ocean Springs School Kids that were here for their planned field trip, and 12 more Visitors. It's been a really slow couple of work days at the Visitor's Center.
We had our tablet, the WiFi, Carole's cookbook, our camera, and a set of binoculars to pacify this, in our minds, another slow day.
When we walked over this morning, we had a couple waiting for us to open. We had 10 visitors before 10. The last time that happen we had a really busy day. DeJuVu!!
Between 11 am and 12 pm, as I was helping the Jr Rangers with their projects, people were piling in. It's amazing when you have at least 4 people working in the Visitor's Center only a few people come, but....
10 before 10, then 10 after 1 pm. That sums up the day!
Our best count today was 69 Visitors. And yes, we are patting ourselves on the back, We did good!!
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