Pleasant memories

 We see this tree at Estero Llano Grande State Park. It’s in the tropical section; the part of the park with exotic plantings.  Not all the vegetation here is native to South Texas.  I recognize this kind of tree from our youth at Carroll Park.  It was in the yard on the other side of the driveway opposite the upstairs balcony. It has these leaves that aren’t really shaped like leaves. In our younger years, we might have referred to these leaves on the ground as “worms”. This kind of tree is called a Star Pine.  It is endemic to a small island in the South Pacific, but has come to be used as an ornamental tree in the southern U.S. and other subtropical regions of the globe. I always liked that tree. 

Saturday

 We drove home in the car. 2017 January trip The map’s a little messy.  Now we’re just driving back and forth across routes we’ve already been.  We considered going back to Port Aransas for a Jaeger (that’s a bird) at the jetty, but we were just there.  We considered driving south to Laredo for an Amazon Kingfisher (that’s another bird), but the Rio Grande is fast and muddy there right now, so the bird isn’t reliable.  We decided to just go home.  Weather was cool and rainy most of the time we were up north.  We drove home to 90 degrees.  Pretty comfy weather for January. Tomorrow, a quiet day.  We’ll stay home and watch football most of it.  All our teams are out of contention now, so Go Football!  

Port Aransas Birding Center

 From yesterday. Tri-colored heron. Great egret. Green heron. Gator in the sunset.    We’ve moved on; back to San Antonio. 2017 January trip  Our coach batteries are 4 years old and that’s all one can expect out of a standard battery pack (four batteries).  We decided to get them changed out for some higher-tech batteries that last longer.  They can’t get the work done before the weekend, so here we are, parked in our favorite spot in their yard for the night. Tomorrow, we leave the coach here and drive home in the car.  They can take their time to work on it.  We’ll come back next weekend to pick it up. 

Thursday

 For January, a Big Day.  Jon and me.  There are only winter birds here, no migrants, so the total can’t be really big.  We projected 155 birds for the day.  We got 168!  A new record for us.  (Although we’ve never done a January Big Day before, so anything we did would be a new record.)  J