Author: Steve

 

From the windshield of the motorhome.

 

From Oasis, through Clovis, Texico, and Farwell.  Made a right turn at Muleshoe.  This part of Texas has aptly named towns; Levelland, Brownfield, Cotton Center, Earth, and Plainfield.  High plains. 

 

Warmer weather.  This is the first time we’ve used the air conditioning while driving in a long time.  Stubble fields of cotton, corn, and hay.  Nothing actively growing yet.  Tilled fields.  Wind from the west.  Red topsoil, on its way to Oklahoma, drifting across the north south highway.  Tilling is traditional.  It’s not always necessary.  I wonder how much consideration is given to no-till farming here.

 

On these driving days, Jesse gets bored.  Henry’s fine.  He’ll sleep on the dashboard or floor the whole day if need be.  Jesse though, she can only make it a couple hours before it’s time to play and nothing else will do.  When she wants something, she doesn’t bark.  She talks.  Quite the vocabulary of growls, chirps and whines.  Toy balls get dribbled at my feet.  Stuffed animal toys are presented for games of tug-a-fetch.  Nothing much happens on my side of the bus.  I’m a little busy driving.  Judy is her only hope.  We make a stop at the next picnic pull-over and both dogs get a little exercise.

 

We turn west at Odessa on Interstate 20.  Tonight it’s Monahans Sandhills State Park.  We have a paved back-in site that is exactly as wide as the wheels of our bus and a narrow access road.  Everything else is soft sand.  Three unattended scoutmasters sitting at the next site watching us.  Judy guiding, me driving, the scoutmasters broke out in applause as we stuck the landing.  There may have been a conversation about whether we could get in that spot or not.  It was hot.  Judy gave them ice cream bars.

 

The Great February Birding Trip Map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the windshield of the motorhome.

 

From Oasis, through Clovis, Texico, and Farwell.  Made a right turn at Muleshoe.  This part of Texas has aptly named towns; Levelland, Brownfield, Cotton Center, Earth, and Plainfield.  High plains. 

 

Warmer weather.  This is the first time we’ve used the air conditioning while driving in a long time.  Stubble fields of cotton, corn, and hay.  Nothing actively growing yet.  Tilled fields.  Wind from the west.  Red topsoil, on its way to Oklahoma, drifting across the north south highway.  Tilling is traditional.  It’s not always necessary.  I wonder how much consideration is given to no-till farming here.

 

On these driving days, Jesse gets bored.  Henry’s fine.  He’ll sleep on the dashboard or floor the whole day if need be.  Jesse though, she can only make it a couple hours before it’s time to play and nothing else will do.  When she wants something, she doesn’t bark.  She talks.  Quite the vocabulary of growls, chirps and whines.  Toy balls get dribbled at my feet.  Stuffed animal toys are presented for games of tug-a-fetch.  Nothing much happens on my side of the bus.  I’m a little busy driving.  Judy is her only hope.  We make a stop at the next picnic pull-over and both dogs get a little exercise.

 

We turn west at Odessa on Interstate 20.  Tonight it’s Monahans Sandhills State Park.  We have a paved back-in site that is exactly as wide as the wheels of our bus and a narrow access road.  Everything else is soft sand.  Three unattended scoutmasters sitting at the next site watching us.  Judy guiding, me driving, the scoutmasters broke out in applause as we stuck the landing.  There may have been a conversation about whether we could get in that spot or not.  It was hot.  Judy gave them ice cream bars.

 

The Great February Birding Trip Map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They seem like places where there wouldn’t be old houses, abandoned farms, and ranches.  You don’t usually see towns or houses inside National Parks of Yellowstone, Yosemite, or Rocky Mountain National Park.  Well, National Grasslands tend to be different.  It’s the same here at Rita Blanca as it is at Pawnee National Grasslands in Colorado.  The prairies were opened up to farming and ranching in the 1860s.  The land was parceled out.  In the 1930s and 40s, the federal government started buying back failed farms and ranches and restoring it.  The result is a patchwork of public and private land.  As we explore it now, we are free to ramble all the public land while respecting the occasional private property barriers of the remaining inhabitants.

 

Now, we’re at Oasis State Park in New Mexico.

 

The Great February Birding Trip Map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow we’ll be out of the Panhandle and back into West Texas.

 

 

 

A sign of the times.  A decommissioned windmill with a solar panel and electric pump next to it.  The water tank is full just the same.

 

Chestnut-collared Longspur.

 

 

 

Merlin

 

 

Chalk pastels.

 

 

 

 

Drifts of tumbleweeds to drive through.

 

 

And a prairie falcon.

 

A ferruginous hawk.

 

 

And a rough-legged hawk.

 

 

Got off a quick shot at a flushed pheasant disappearing back into the grass.

 

 

Current bird count.  264.  Remaining.  136.