The Grandkids Found Us Again.

Our grandkids came to visit for a couple of days and brought their parents along. They had a whirl wind two day tour of South Texas. Our first stop was the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville. We felt like we had the zoo to ourselves, since it was a Thursday morning.

After the zoo, we drove to South Padre Island for fun on the beach. It was a beautiful warm day, but the water and wind were a bit nippy. The kids didn't mind, they loved jumping in the surf and digging in the sand.

While Shawn and Kelly and the two girls went across the border to Mexico, we hiked with the boys around the Santa Ana Refuge. They loved the Hawk Tower and Canopy Bridge.

We had just enough time to take a tram ride around the Refuge. This made for a full day. When the family returned from Mexico safely, Jacob and Logan were ready for another hike back to show their sisters the Hawk Tower.

TIRES! TIRES! Everywhere!

Before

Patrolling for illegal use of refuge land, including dumping, is one of our duties at Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR.



After

  Last week we had an opportunity to clean out on old tire dump found on one of our western tracts, San Francisco Banco. We spent a couple of days transporting the 375 tires to a suitable road for pickup on the northern boundary.

We were very thankful that the weather was cool since we blundered into Africanized Bees nesting in a tire. The bees were very slow moving because of the cool temperature. Kurt was the only casualty with only one sting. The next day we worked on another project while the NWR Fire Crew exterminated the nest. Finally we met the tire recycler who loaded the tires onto his semi trailer to be fed to their huge grinding machine.

The many lizards we met living around the tires were much friendlier than the bees. Virginia couldn't resist picking up this large collared lizard.

Happy New Year From the Valley!

Immediately after Thanksgiving in Austin we returned to Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in the Rio Grande Valley. This is our 4th year volunteering for Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR. We were warmly welcomed back by our supervisor, Scot. Our jobs are similar as in previous years.


CAN YOU GUESS WHAT THIS IS?

Kurt was trimming and cleaning out under a Mexican Olive tree near our RV pad when he came across this odd object. At first glance he thought it plastic, maybe a fishing lure. Then it wiggled. Could it be a scorpion? No. After research, this ugly four inch long dude turned out to be a Sphinx Moth Cocoon. We learned that the hard curved casing extending from the head (left) is actually it's tongue. We placed it in the care of the Refuge Visitor Center, who photographed it. We are awaiting it's emergence into a large moth.