Traveling South to Fulton Texas, with a brief Picnic at Choke Canyon State Park

 

One of the signs of fall is when the deer invade our yard. They are looking for the tasty bushes we have planted and cultivated and are really unconcerned by our presence. Each year we leave when the weather turns cold and so we winterize our fifth wheel before heading out.

The first day we drove to Cheyenne, Wyoming which is a long drive. The reason we drove so far was to beat the high winds that were forecast for the next day. The forecast was that the winds would exceed eighty mile per hour.

Getting up early we dove to Lamar Colorado and checked into a motel. Its was good we pulled off the road early as the front arrived and a dust stormed slammed into the town. Visibility plummeted to about one hundred yards and semis disappeared. They never slowed down.

The next day we traveled to Lubbock, Texas. Each night we stayed at a motel and we got out our cleaning and sterilizing wipes to carefully disinfect all of the surfaces. Again, we got up early and drove to Boerne, Texas which is just north of San Antonio. We took a rock on the drive and shattered our windshield so for Christmas we are going to get a new one!

As we were only two hundred and fifty miles from our winter spot in Fulton Texas, we actually planned for a picnic at one of our favorite birding spots, Choke Canyon State Park. Entering the park, we spotted a green jay but were not able to get an image.

We drove to the eighty-acre pond got out our binoculars and cameras. Walking out to several birding points we saw the usual birds. A white ibis stood on a log and coots and swamp hens paddled around oblivious to our intrusion. The water was extremely low and areas that were usually flooded were high and dry.

We did not spot any alligators and had to be contented with a great egret, a great blue heron, and some drab ducks in their dull fall plumage, (gadwalls perhaps?). Driving through the campground was not any better but as we got near the parks exit, we saw a male and female scissortail flycatcher.

They were on a power line in about the same exact spot we had seen our first one twelve years ago.

The flycatchers made our day and so we drove the rest of the way to find our fifth wheel parked and waiting. We were home at last!  Clear skies