Whopping Cranes in Texas

One of the places I went to between Big Bent National Park Texas and the Mississippi River is Goose Lake State Park in Texas right next to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. I went there because it is a good place to see some of the whopping cranes on their wintering ground. This is not the only place where you can see whopping cranes in winter.
Here are bits and pieces of the one sign about them in the park put up by Texas State Parks.

Since I was in Wood Buffalo National Park this summer, it is nice to "catch" the cranes here in Texas.

 For the record Wood Buffalo National Park is mostly in Alberta but also partly in the Northwest Territories so the part of the sign below is not entirely accurate. But then again they actually knew it was Canada so they are above average right there.

Interestingly enough the cranes who fly in a nearly straight line makes this trip in 4000 kilometres (2500 miles as the sign says) but with all the detours I do I did it in 8,000+ kilometres, double and this does not include small trips I do when I am stopped somewhere.

The big difference to me was to see how close they were to humans in Texas compared to how remote they are in Canada in summer, but then again they are nesting when they are in Canada and need more privacy.

I saw eleven at one time and pretty much this is the estimated number in the area.

Remember I only have a small point-and-shoot camera and I specialize in fuzzy bird pictures.

the birds in flight and a few on the ground with the whopping cranes in the photo below are sandhill cranes which are quite common in Wood Buffalo National Park and all around that area. They are the one I kept on seeing on this trip.

...considering the camera I have I am really happy with the next two pictures.

Just for comparaison this is the type of place where you see them in Wood Buffalo National Park...when you see them, mostly they are out there far from visitors.

You can obviously just search "whopping cranes" on your own but if you want to see some really good pictures I recommend this site. I am guessing they they are not using little point-and-shoot cameras! ;-)

Spring Break dates for 2014

This post is for me. It really is just a posted link so I can fin dit..... I do know that you can bookmark internet pages.
Spring Break dates for 2014.
I had not realize that the Spring Break season was so long. It seems that most universities take Spring Break for a week sometime between March 2nd and March 23rd or 30th.

It matters to me because those are times when traveling around is more expensive and may require a bit more planning to make sure that there is still space in campgrounds. I do know that for example the last State Park where I stayed in Texas (Martin Dies Jr State Park) was fully booked for this week end and pretty busy for the rest of the week.

The Mississippi Basin

Here is a map of the Mississippi Basin, meaning the area of land which is drained by the Mississippi River. (the image is from the US Army Corps of Engineers)

I am thinking about it because this part of the world is going through yet another winter storm that the BBC is labeling a "Fast-falling snow storm"... I am not sure what they mean by "fast-falling snow". I did notice though that they write in the same article that "The storm will be followed by near-record low temperatures on Tuesday"....tomorrow...... It is a shame because the magnolias, the camellias, the daffodils, the ornamental plum trees and many other plants are all in bloom.

Anyway, originally I wanted to look at the map of the basin because I was thinking about how much water this is going to be once the weather warms up and the snow melts.
I would imagine that the Mississippi River will have major floods this year.

Texas Longhorns

I love Texas longhorns. I think they look so beautiful.

I am obviously blogging completely out of sequence. I did see those in Texas, though in eastern Texas as you can guess from the greenery. There isn't such green grass in western Texas... I am willing to bet that there isn't such green grass any time of year in western Texas. Don't get me wrong, I really like western Texas but it just isn't green.

The Mississippi River, some photos, part 1

Just the first few pictures. I'll show more later after I download those I have on the camera.

First impression of the Mississippi River 275 kilometers (172 miles) north of the delta: it is much narrower than I expected. Here it is about 800 metres (half a mile) wide and has steep banks.

There is a lot of traffic on it, tug boats pushing large containers, up to 24 by my count. I was told that in fact there is a channel which was dug to allow for boat traffic all year round. I am not sure if it is true since I was also told several times that the river here was a mile wide which it clearly isn't (I drove across it several times, and walked across it four times).

There is a two mile walk along the river with regular benches, and in places even swing benches. One is just by the campground and last night when it was still warm but the wind was bringing in the dark clouds and the cooler temperatures, I was sitting on one of the swing-benches enjoying the moment and I had that thought: "you know you are doing something right in your life when you can here crickets and frogs chirping in the evening." I thought that the crickets are telling you that you are somewhere warm with some wilderness, and the frogs are telling you that there is water near. If you can add to this a swing bench by some river ...in this case the Mississippi... things are really pretty good.