Category Archives: other animals

a blessed day, hot as hell [143 – 173]

Pole on High Island, resplendent in her birder plumage

Today we returned to High Island . . . prepared. The day started out well because we got to check out of the odious La Quinta. We skipped their lousy breakfast, and headed straight to Gander Mountain. Pole wanted to get some of that new-fangled clothing that’s impregnated with bug repellent. They didn’t have it, so instead, we got long-legged, long-sleeved sunblock outfits (UPF 30) that we changed into at the store. Of course, with our sensible pants and shirts, we now looked like the typical dorky birder I ridiculed in yesterday’s post. Pole is particular about how she dresses, and she wasn’t happy about her outfit. And I was kind of disappointed in her, too. The good thing about birding with Pole is that if there are no birds around, I can at least look at her.

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awful, but it’s where the birds are [107 – 142]

Pole in Anahuac (on a tilt, as poles often are)

Last Friday we left for a week-long trip to Texas. We drove Friday night and all of Saturday. Not straight through, mind you. We stopped in Cape Girardeau, Missouri on Friday and made it to Beaumont, Texas last night. So today — Easter Sunday — was our first day birding the Texas coast. And though today was our biggest day ever for birds, it may have been the worst day ever, too.

Starting with the worst, the hotel was a dump. It was old and run down and in the middle of an industrial area right next to the highway. I won’t tell you its name, but let’s just say it was a La Quinta Inn. We knew we were here to bird, so we got over that pretty quick. (Right.) So this morning we headed for the coast down Route 124 toward Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. It wasn’t long before we saw some CATTLE EGRETS in a field along the side of the road. And the a BLACK VULTURE flying above us. Two lifers from the get-go. Then we hit it big.

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first hoosier expedition [81 – 92]

Today we made the year’s first trip to Indiana. We went to Willow Slough Fish and Wildlife Area, which is an old favorite, though we haven’t been there for over a year. It’s a 80-mile drive south of Chicago, through miles and miles of flat cornfields. Very dull. Very Midwest. In the past, we had luck at the area’s Salisbury Rookery, a large marsh that was often full of ducks. But when we drove by today, all the water had gone: the rookery had become a soybean field.

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with this camera i shot the wolf

Here’s a picture of Gunflint Lake during a snowstorm. That little dot on the ice is a timber wolf. Obviously, I haven’t figured out digiscoping yet. Seeing it was one of the highlights of the trip, though you’d never know from this sucky picture. I saw the wolf was just after dawn, and though Pole was up, she wasn’t out yet. By the time I got her, the wolf had gone.

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more deer than birds [38 – 43]

Pole in the snow

Pole on the George Washington Pines Trail

Last night we arrived at Gunflint Lodge on Gunflint Lake at the end of the Gunflint Trail. It would be nice if I could say it was in the town of Gunflint, too, but it ain’t. Driving the trail at night, we saw two moose calves, and in the morning, lots of tame whitetail deer around the cabins. At one point I counted something like 16 outside our window. The lodge has corn so the guests can feed them, which means the deer become spoiled pests. A big doe actually stamped her foot at me when she thought I was going to mess with the corn I had given her. I stamped my foot right back at her, the ingrate.

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