Tom and Judy visit the western Valley

It has been awhile since we posted. We've been busy with our work for the CHAP Convention in May. Our friends, Tom and Judy, came for a visit today. They are staying in Aaroyo City about 90 minutes east of us. We had fun catching up with them . We met in Las Vegas in the fall of 2008 and had so much fun watching all the jets fly in and out of Nellis AFB during the Red Flag exercise. They are pilots so they had extreme patience with us (really me, Nada) not recognizing the various types of planes that were flying over us. After a week or so, we part our separate ways. About a month later we ran into each other at the same campground in Yuma, AZ. Since then, we have kept in touch via email as our travels have gone different routes. When we found out they were coming down to the Rio Grande Valley, we told them we just had to get together. So they came for a visit today and we had the fun of going to the Birding Center and toured the state park doing some bird watching. It was mid-afternoon until we got there since we first went out for a leisurely lunch ;-) and got caught up on the past year of each other's travels.

First we drove down to the Palapa at the Rio Grande River. In the photo above, Doug, Judy and Tom are walking down to the Rio Grande River. We had to be careful because the fire ants were establishing new colonies here and there. If you click on the photo and enlarge it, you can see the small mounds of dirt on the left side of the photo about half way from the bottom of the photo to the water. The dirt is a little darker than the sanding ground. Don't want to stop on the fire ant hill and they give new meaning to the word "sting!" It actually is a blister rather than a sting! That is Mexico on the other side of the river. The river us about 25 feet deep here due to a dam about a mile downstream.



Judy and Doug are looking at the footprints in the dirt trying to determine what creature made them. The Palapa is in the background. One of the folks from our campground was getting a fire started in the fire pit for a group coming down to eat dinner together and enjoy the evening.

Above, Doug and Tom walking back from the river. Just as we were ready to leave, the Riverside boat came up stream on its cruise.


Next it was off to the birding center. Being mid-afternoon, not too many birds were moving around. I was able to get a few photos of Altamira Orioles at the one feeding station blind. Sorry, the photos aren't real clear.




The green jays were illusive to my camera today so I had to settle for just Altamiras. We also found one of their nests. Since the Altamira is the largest Oriole, it stands to reason their nest would be large, too. We found a nest in the state park and also one here in our campground. I'll attempt to get a photo of one on our bird feeding run on Monday.


We hopped the tram in the park and went to the Hawk Tower to see what was there. We spied a large hawk sitting in the branches across the resaca. I tried to crop my photo and zoom in but the clarity of the photo is not good enough to tell the type of hawk.

We got on the tram to ride back to the park entrance and Doug spied a Caracara which is in the Falcon family. I love colorful birds! I did not take this photo - I was so excited seeing one of these in the wild that I enjoyed the moment. I snitched this photo off a free website so you could see how beautiful they are. They are not quite as big as eagles but are larger than the largest hawk. What a sight to see him swoop right by us and land on a bare tree.

That brings to mind that our birding trip today made me realize how last month's freeze really killed so much. As I looked at the grey branches without leaves I realized the brush was quite leafless and grey.... Almost like that cold northern part of the country.... But wait, it is 78 degrees here and up THERE, there is 24" of snow!!!!