Mammoth Goes to Spring Migration, Day 5

 Monday 4/11/22

Small alligator in the pond by our campsite, later replaced by a big mama alligator:

I also had the good fortune to see a rail, most likely a King Rail. My usual glimpses of birds like these usually look like this:

 But he came right out in the open for me!

Unless it's a hybrid between the King Rail and the Clapper Rail, my ID is most likely correct. One thing in particular, the King Rail prefers fresh water; the Clapper Rail salt water, and these little ponds are most definitely fresh water.  They may be sprayed with salt from the ocean wind, and they may get a dosing of salt water when a hurricane blows through, but in general  they're all fresh.

After breakfast, we took a drive down to road just to see where it ended up. Google maps indicated we could drive into the McFaddin Wildlife Refuge, and we could. We drove along endless little roads along canals, ponds, and pools of water of all sorts. And we saw hundreds and hundred of alligators, from large to tiny--so many I quit looking over when Ed called out, "There's one. And another. And another...."  

But oh, the marshes! they went on for miles and miles, intercrossed with canals and lots of little alligators. Tons of Common Moorhen and enough red-winged blackbird to fill a ton of pies.

The road on Google went on a long way (to nowhere), so we decided to follow. After a while we saw what looked like a huge greenhouse in the distance. Closer up, we eventually realized it was a floating greenhouse, and then, not a greenhouse at all. It was a ship in a navigation canal that went all the way from Galveston bay to Port Arthur.

At long last the road ended at a gate to some sort of little buildings. So that was the end--for us.  Out there we saw several Osprey--I wish I'd taken some pictures of them, but they didn't seem to like us stopping to look at them. They were roosting on electric poles alongside the road, and when we slowed down to look they started spreading out their wigs and preparing to fly.

Birds at the pond by camp:  Green Heron

I wasn't able to id--probably a Lesser Yellowlegs

Wilson's Snipe

 Some sort of Plover

That was all for the morning, and more than enough for any morning. After lunch, Molly and I got in a jog. Out through the day use area to the ocean. Then I wanted to jog north (actually it's north-east) but eventually got to a load of birds that I just didn't care to disturb, so I turned back and headed south.We passed up the boardwalk and the campsite, past the primitive campers at the ocean--just two smallish RVs this time of year.  One we went until finally, my stopwatch said 30 minutes. Half done, and finally, we got to turn back.

We retraced our steps and it was about one hour when we returned to camp. Jogging accomplished.

Molly's Nemesis