Whoopers and Beach Time

Our friends Bob and Nancy are here visiting and as it’s their first time on the Texas Coastal Bend we had to take them fishing on the beach and birding at Lamar, (I taught with Bob for thirty years and his wife Nancy was a school guidance counselor).

I knew that Bob wouldn’t have any problem fishing as we had fished walleye tournaments for eighteen years. So it was no surprise to see him out fish me as he caught a nice black drum. My luck was that I was fishing and enjoying my new beach chair, (hard work I know but someone has to do it).

Bob taught science with me and I knew they would also like seeing the whooping cranes of Lamar. Luckily they haven’t left yet and so we were able to see a group of seven juveniles. They have separated from their parents and are hanging out in a typical teenage gang, party time!

In a year or two they will pair up for life and from then on the male will defend his territory. That makes it easy to spot the juveniles as adults would never gather in a group. We watched them as they fed and after a while they grew antsy as one male chased another around the watching females.

Spreading their wings they did several false takeoffs before finally heading into the wind, running a few steps and then lifting off! They, along with the adults, should soon be on their way north to Canada. This time they were probably just flying up the bay to feed on more blue crab.

It should be a good year for the flock as the blue crab are everywhere and whoopers usually have good nesting and egg laying season when they feed on lots and lots of blue crab. There are currently seven hundred birds so let’s hope for lots more chicks when they return next year!

Finally we had to show our friends the famous Big Tree of Texas. It’s over a thousand years old and is an enormous live oak, one of the biggest we have seen anywhere. As an added bonus the wildflowers surrounded the tree adding to the beauty of the day. Clear skies