Choke Canyon, Fall 2010

We left Hondo and made the short jaunt to Choke Canyon State Park. We have stayed there before and its one of our favorite state parks with excellent birding and fishing and so we planned a week there before we headed to the coast.
The frist night we heard animals outside our window and we woke up to find the campground full of deer. Bucks and does and fawns all seemed tame as they watched while we took our morning walk. The deer here are so small compared to their northern cousins but the surface area to size ratio dictates size in hot and cold areas.

The first full day we headed to the seventy five acre lake to check out the alligators and do some birding. It felt good, and so with the bird book in hand we reacquainted ourselves with the characteristics of the herons and egrets. Hmmm, black legs and yellow feet so it must be a snowy egret?
The water was up and we only saw one alligator but we did see a pair of green jays, along with a common marsh hen and  lots and lots of egrets. A pair of golden fronted woodpeckers flitted from tree to tree and we clearly saw the crimson red color on the top notch of the male.
Surprisingly, we didn't see any vermilion flycatchers, perhaps it was too early as we are usually here in mid November. Scissorr tailed flycatchers were in abundance and we did see our first cara caras, first for this fall anyway. So we did see most of the usual birds.
The next morning I went fishing, armed with some bait fish I caught with my cast net. I was pretty rusty with the throws and so it took me awhile to catch enough but I hoped the cut bait would at least catch us some catfish.
A flock of black bellied whistling ducks flew overhead, their high pitched whistling so distinctive and I thought of the old saying a bird heard is a bird seen. Small fish bothered my bait and I didn't have any luck, in fact my luck was really pretty bad as I got bit by a fire ant!
Going back to our fifth wheel I ate lunch and laid down and soon woke up with three bites on my shoulder and chest, with pain and swelling. A spider bite perhaps? I cleaned the bite areas and covered them with a topical first aid cream. It felt like my ears were swelling shut and so I took an allergy pill and the swelling eased, at least in my ears, (the swelling and pain lasted for two days and I was really concerned about it being a brown recluse bite but it finally returned to normal with no discoloring or other bad stuff).

The next day we returned to the Seventy Six Acre lake for more birding and got a great look at the alligators! Walking down the gravel path to the first bird overlook we surprised a rather large alligator next to the bank. It soon reappeared and it was a big one! Looking a little further out we saw the king of the lake, the eighteen footer! It was floating with only its head visible and oh my what a head! The ten footer near us was tiny in comparison and we glanced around nervously as we watched the gators and the birds.
We did go to town and stopped at an antique shop, but we weren't impressed. The fishing never did turn on but we enjoyed our stayed there. The birding and the peace and quiet, added to the beauty of the spot was the reason we had returned and the reason we will come back again. Clear skies.