Author: Steve

She does usually, unless she wants something.  Then she looks like this.

Or this, if she has to explain it more than once!

A shorebird that likes dry land too.

Usually, we see them on the beach, probing the sand.  We found this one 60 miles from the ocean, grazing for bugs in the grass.

Getting ready for the summer diet, I guess.  They winter here in South Texas and Mexico.  In summer, they migrate up into the plains states to breed out in the grasslands.

…and see all the different places.

But there is plenty of cool stuff right in our neighborhood too.  Here is Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.

With observation decks to look out over ponds.

A view of the mighty Rio Grande from a remote vantage.

And a suspension bridge between two towers for a bird’s eye view into the forest.

Stretching.

Or preening.

Or maybe just showing off.

A spectacular bird, dashing out to snatch a bug and returning to its perch, it can be seen in the south-central U.S. down through Central America.

The entire sugar cane industry in the valley closed down this year.  The growers couldn’t get enough water commitments, so they couldn’t afford to plant, which made it unprofitable for the Sugar House processing plant to stay open, so it shut down.  Now that the processing plant is down, there’s no point in planting cane even if more water does become available.  There is no place to process the product!  No more black clouds on the horizon from cane fields burning prior to harvesting.  No more black snow at our house from drifting ash put out by the burning fields.  The end of an era.