Day 7, Sun., April 8, 2018 Bird watching, 1st laundry, a Triathalon!

Yes that was right. There was a 70.3 Ironman race just outside the Park today and we had a chance to ride along with it at one time (in the truck of course) The "70.3" refers to the total distance in miles (113.0 km) covered in the race, consisting of a 1.2-mile (1.9 km) swim, a 56-mile (90 km) bike ride, and a 13.1-mile (21.1 km) run. They are run all over the world and today it was here on Galveston Island and a bit more. Every bit of it was along the Gulf of Mexico shoreline except tsome of the run portion.

So, as we went out to scope our first birding area, (there is only one main road on the western end of Galveston Island) we crossed the bikers a few times. That brought us to a place called 'Dos Vacos (Muertos') (Two dead stacks?) set aside by a family as a donation to the Audubon Society in Galveston as a Nature Preserve in perpetuity. There are wooded areas as well as a good wetland of a few acres. Small, but abundant in animal life, and for us the birds, especially. They had even designed a blind on  platform at one side so viewers could be hidden from the birds and see through "slots"in the walls to locate and observe the birds.  We did use that to our advantage.The habitat consists of salt cedars, a pond, marshes, mulberry, wax myrtle, live oak and hackberry trees. There is also a seating area near a water drip for close up shots of the birds. We will get back to this spot when the sun comes out! We did observe; Chat, Catbird, Hooded Warbler, Northern Water Thruh, Cardinal, Eastern Bluebird  and a Northern Parula while we were there.

Always when we drive from place to place, even to the store (and many of you know this), we keep a lookout for any type of bird that we can see, That allows us to note each day  (every day) all the bird species that we have seen on our trips for more than 20 years now. We did finally compile those numbers for a "life list" just the past few months.. It is not our goal but people do ask so now we can answer the question. We enjoy learning aboyt and watching the bird actions and antics as much as anything.

In the park there is a large pond by the Office that has giant reeds and a shoreline of rushes for Rails and other Herons, Egrets and Bitterns in which to hide. There we have seen Moorhens, (a young family)  American Bittern and a Green Heron. 

This afternoon, after 8 days on the road, it was time to do a laundry. This Park has all facilities above ground like much of the housing along the Gulf shore. And by that I mean up in the air 10 feet or more built up oneither metal posts or at lest 8 x 8's.  So that means a stairs to climb with the laundry, but... they did think ahead and have a long ramp that circles the building so access is a bit easier.  Ruth took the ramp and I tookthe stairs. (Yes, I still can although it is not pretty to watch.) They were good machines at reasonable costs . I thought you would never ask!  Wash was  $2.00/load and dry was  $1.75/ load .  (Two loads of each for us)  That is a fair price as they do vary all over the country. You will see as we travel, I believe. 

So clean clothes, some bird viewing, rested up pretty good after the original miles (2,400) and settled in here on the Gulf Coast for two weeks. 

Tomorrow we will head into Galveston, perhaps in time to see the Tall Ships leave port for Pensacola FL. Theyhave made a race feature out of this event. Two legs. Galveston to Fl and then the week later Fl to New Orleans LA.  The three day festival in town had many activites, bands, games, food, rides on the ships, and tours. It was a big event for the community. This morning when returning from birding , the cars on this two lane highway were "bumper to bumper" at about 5 mph going back into town for the activities and to be with the racers.  We were happy to turn off at the Park.

This was misnamed earlier and is a Wild Indigo (cream) 

It grows profusely in many fields here.

Gilliardia is a common roadside flower

As yet unidentified roadside flower.

The total birds today was 31 with our individual species count at 61 for the trip.That number hopefully will continue to rise each day and it will be interesting to see where it will end up. During the last trip  to Alaska I held a contest to guess the number of species on the trip and we may do that again, after folks get the "feel" of how the days go in counting species. It has been posted each day.

See you tomorrow we hope in Galveston and more birds from the "back bays".