12/31/09 Blue Moon, Altamira Oriole, and a bobcat!

As we rode our bikes out of the campground this morning at 6:55 AM the moon was just setting on the western horizon. As we arrived at the state park maintenance shed to exchange our bikes for the golf cart and pickup the bird seed, peanut butter, and citrus, we ran into one of the park rangers. Carol asked us if we saw the "Blue Moon" and we said yes. Maybe you are like us and not sure why it is called a blue moon so here is Wikipedia's explanation:

A blue moon is a full moon that is not timed to the regular monthly pattern. Most years have twelve full moons which occur approximately monthly, but in addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains an excess of roughly eleven days compared to the lunar year. The extra days accumulate, so that every two or three years, there is an extra full moon. The extra moon is called a "blue moon."

The term "blue moon" is commonly used metaphorically to describe the rarity of an event, as in the idiomatic expression, "once in a blue moon."

So above and below are my photos of the 12/31/09 Blue Moon! My zoom photo below is a little blurry.

At our 4th feeding station, an Altamira Oriole showed up after we put out the fresh citrus. We have seen quite a few of these colorful birds but I hadn't been able to get a photo of one before. If you click on the photo and enlarge it, you might be able to see the female and male cardinal ground feeding in the background to the left of the Altamira.


I just love how they bend upside down to eat the orange.



The photo below is a photo of Doug looking out over the La Parida Blanco resaca in Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park. Resacas are former channels of the Rio Grande but after floods, the river changed its course and they were left unconnected to the river channel. Most are dry except during rainy periods (which seems to be all the time this winter!) but many are now used as part of the irrigation and wildlife habitat and are pumped full with river water.

BIG DISCLAIMER HERE.......
I did not take the photos below (I found them online and put these here so you could see what I saw) - I was too much in awe as I saw a bobcat this morning at our next-to-the-last feeding station. It actually scared the daylights out of me. Doug was on the other side of the feeding station filling the sunflower and mixed seed feeders. I take care of the sticky peanut butter/suet mixture that gets pushed into holes drilled into hanging logs. At this feeding station, the suet/peanut butter log is hanging from a branch at the edge of the undergrowth. As I walked up to the suet/peanut butter feeder, the bobcat apparently had been laying under some brush about two feet away and it got up and walked away from me. It was so unexpected and happened so fast that I didn't even think of taking a photo. It didn't run away but just walked like a cat does - absolutely silent. We knew there were several bobcats in the park and my goal was to see one while we were here. I should have made that goal to see one AND get a photo of it but I might have to settle for just seeing one! They are about twice the size of a big house cat.

Hidalgo Pumphouse Museum 12/28/09

Yesterday, we went to the Hidalgo Pumphouse Museum. I was built around the turn of the century and was instrumental in the development of the agriculture here in the Rio Grande Valley. The little tour we took was given by the man whose father was the first pumphouse master and then he succeeded his father. The pumphouse would extract water from the Rio Grande River and pump it to the towns and also to the crops via irrigation ditches. In 1933 there was a huge hurricane and the river flooded and when it declined, there was a new course for the river. In some places Mexico lost land and the US gained land and in other place the reverse was true. After that huge hurricane and its devestation, they started building dams along the river so there could no longer be such a change in course for the river.

These are outside views of the old pumphouse (There is now an electric pumphouse down stream which does the job the old pumphouse used to do) Originally, the pumphouse created the steam from burning mesquite, then it was adapted to burning natural gas.

There are beautiful grounds surrounding the pumphouse which are one of the 9 national birding sites in the Rio Grande Valley.

These are views looking toward the border with Mexico which show some of your tax dollars at work.... Yes, those are segments of the border wall recently constructed. If you klick on the photo below you can see some places where it is much taller than in other places. The tall places are where there isn't much of a drop-off on the Mexico side due to a road or such so they made the fence taller. In the places where the wall is shorter, it is because it sits at the edge of the dyke and there is a large drop on the Mexican side.





Now the problem is the wall is not continuous. Gates were to be installed where the breaks are in the wall, but we were told the Obama adminstration has cut the funding so we now have partial walls along the border with gaps!

Above is a photo of Nada in front of the wall.

I just loved these blue flowers.... I have to find out what they are since blue is such a hard color to produce in flowers.

These flowers were so unique with the yellowish centers and orange edges....

A border patrol in one of the gaps...

When we were walking outside, I heard the buzz of hummingbirds by my ear. Apparently they were attracted to my red jacket. In the photo above, Doug is looking at one of the hummers sitting in the tree. There were several hummer feeders in the trees and there was hummer warfare going on as one male was trying to guard all the feeders.

The view above is of the channel they dug in 1933 after that big hurricane move the Rio Grande a 1/4 mile south. They dug this channel to bring the water to the pumphouse so they could continue to pump water to the towns and agricultural fields. The view is looking toward Reynosa, Mexico where you can see buildings.

The rest of these views are inside the pumphouse. The city of Hidalgo decorates the inside at Christmas with Snow Village as part of the Hidalgo Festival of Lights (see our previous post of the Christmas Lights if you haven't already)






The following photos are looking down on the model train layout. The smell brought back memories of our train layout and made me think of all "the smells of Christmas" that we take for granted.



These views show the boilers that produced the steam to pump the water....










Feliz Año Nuevo!

Homer and his friends 12/28/09

Here are some photos of Homer and his friends at the dog run. In the first one, Doug and Homer are waiting outside the gate until the owners get their dogs under control. Once inside, then it is play time for the dogs once the owners know the are all friends. They have so much fun together. The Dobermans keep buzzing around Homer and he takes off chasing them but can't catch them - They are much younger and much more agile. It would be so interesting to know what their barks and grumbles are really saying! The most vocal and bossy dogs are the tiny little guys who don't listen to any commands and jump trying to nip at the big dog's noses and heels. For the most part the big dogs just ignore them!