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Port Aransas

Wild weather night last night. Wind and rain. We pulled in one of the bedroom slides to quiet it down some. It’s a social group here. We get together to celebrate holidays and each other’s arrivals, anniversaries, and birthdays. To simplify, we’ve taken to consolidating events. Tonight was dinner at Juan’s to celebrate five December birthdays, three arrivals, new owners, and new friends. Dinner for thirty. That was not a quiet get-together. It’s quiet now, though. Back home, just the two of us. The wind has gone down. Now we’ll watch the thermometer go down. We’re in the forties. We’ll probably be in the thirties before the night is over. Then we get a warm-back-up. Tomorrow afternoon, we get our Christmas present from Becky: Becky. She’s flying down to visit us for a couple days.
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Weather

Heavy snow in Colorado. A change in the weather here too; a Norther. Heavy wind. Falling temperatures. A real blow. Right now it’s gusting to forty. Bouncing the rig. It’ll be like sleeping on a boat tonight.
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Birding

A birding day with Jon. We didn’t go after a big day. We went after interesting birds. There have been a couple surf scoters on the water southeast of Kingsville. There has been a brant hanging out with a flock of snow geese in the same neighborhood. Both are good birds for Texas. One, the brant, is a lifer for me. On the way there, the purple sandpiper on the jetty at South Padre came up in conversation. (Jon hears about any unusual birds around.) A purple sandpiper? Another good bird for Texas, and also a lifer for me. Our fifty mile drive turned into a one hundred fifty mile drive. We were there by 10am. A purple sandpiper hanging out with a pack of ruddy turnstones at the very end of the jetty. It was cold and windy. We walked halfway out. It was wet and slippery. Waves were blowing over the rest of the jetty. Jon told me about a tropical parula in McAllen sixty miles inland. At that point, sixty miles to a life-bird sounded like a much better idea than two hundred dangerous yards to a life-bird, so off we went. We found the park where the tropical parula was supposed to be. We found two of them! Found other cool birds too, like plain chachalacas, white tipped doves, buff-bellied hummingbirds, golden fronted woodpeckers, green jays, long billed thrashers, a few warblers and gnatcatchers, and a black crested titmouse.We didn’t go after a big day. We went after interesting birds. Altogether we listed seventy nine birds though; one of them a life-bird for me. Dark to dark. A four hundred eighty mile day.