Busy Day

April 30, 2013

We may have over scheduled this Tuesday, but it turned out to be an educational and fun-filled day. We got up a little earlier than usual so we could take advantage of the early morning birding at the Davis Mountains State Park just a few miles from our campground. They have an interpretive center with a great birding/wildlife blind with constant water source plus food. We grabbed coffee on the way up there, and ended up having our most productive birding session yet, seeing 16 species in about 45 minutes, several of which we added to our lifelist of birds (meaning we had not seen them before). 

Jack viewing birds from inside the building next to feeders. There is also an outside viewing blind we used first.

Many serious birders keep a formal lifelist, with details of sightings, and even photos whenever they can get them. We’ve been less formal to this point, merely jotting a note and date next to the bird entry in our Peterson guides. But we may be starting to get more serious. Jack had been looking at birding apps for his iPad mini and he ended up downloading a massive app of the entire North American Peterson bird guide (680 megs!). This is a great app, with all kinds of info and bird pictures, even the bird calls. It makes identifying and recording birds easier than using the books, plus it’s lighter to carry. Still hoping to see a few more birds before we leave the Big Bend area (where we are is still considered Big Bend area)—I’ll give you our complete list of species spotted in the next blog. No, no painted buntings yet, but I’ve talked to several people who offered advice on other places that are good for spotting them. Maybe…

Speaking of birders, we’ve seen a lot of them ever since we got to the Big Bend area and we’ve had almost as much fun watching the birders as the birds. You can spot them by their neutral colored clothing, hats, and expensive binoculars and cameras with long lenses. Yesterday was particularly amusing—a sizable group of maybe 16 or 20 “serious” birders was roaming around near the blind where we were watching, scanning the hills and treed areas for rare birds to add to their lifelists. They were actually a little annoying, because they were talking excitedly and loudly enough to scare away some of the birds we amateurs were watching at the blind. At one point, the whole group screamed and started running toward one spot where you could see a group of trees on the mountainside. One of them had spotted a rare hawk (the zoned hawk, as one of them later informed me rather haughtily—I did catch a glimpse of it soaring but would have mistaken it for a turkey vulture).

After our exciting morning of birding, we drove back down the road to Fort Davis National Historic Park, one of the best-preserved western frontier forts of the Indian Wars era. 

View of officers quarters.

Actually the fort was founded just prior to the Civil War but became defunct because Texas seceded (Jack's comment: Texas secession was against the desires and mighty protests of Governor and Texas hero, Sam Houston). After the Civil War, it was renovated and troops were stationed here to protect the vital overland route for settlers, mail and freight from attacks by Apache and Comanche. The fort is also noteworthy because several regiments of African-American U.S. troops (called Buffalo Soldiers) that were formed after the Civil War were stationed here. Very nicely restored site—some of the buildings are in ruins but many of them have been restored to their original state, so it’s great living history.

View of officer's quarters across parade ground. Commanding Officer's house in the center.

Carol on porch of home of  Commanding Officer.

Inside the CO's quarters. Tough duty?

The inside of many buildings have not been restored and the foundations of many building are all that is left.

After buying groceries and having a light lunch, we drove about 16 miles up a mountain to the McDonald Observatory, a world-renowned astronomical observatory run by the University of Texas.

 

As we approach we can see the telescope housings on the horizon.

The entrance sign.

We have reservations for their Star Party later tonight, so we wanted to pick up our tickets and see whatever we can see in the daylight. The drive offers some striking views of the several domes housing the telescopes at the top of the mountain. We almost collided with a mule deer running across the road, a reminder to be extra careful when we negotiate this road later in the dark. This observatory produces the radio program StarDate, which airs on many NPR stations. They have several important telescopes, including what they told us is the 3rd largest in the world but Wikipedia says is currently the 5th largest (telescopes must be somewhat like Jack’s fish…). They had an informative visitor’s center and we were able to drive up higher to get a close look at the domes (but not the actual research telescopes). 

Carol outside one of the big telescopes.

...and an even bigger telescope.

Jack with an even bigger and newer telescope in the background--the 3rd or 5th largest in world.

After that tour, we drove back down the mountain to have dinner at the Davis Mountains State Park lodge and check out the birding at the blind again. Still lots of birds but we didn’t see any new species this time. Then back up the mountain for the Star Party.

The small stick-on badge we wore at the "party".

This is one of the darkest night sky locations in the lower 48 states, and conditions were perfect for our viewing tonight. They have numerous smaller telescopes for viewing night objects. Tonight Saturn was perfect for viewing, along with several star clusters and the Sombrero Galaxy. The viewing was preceded by a very informative and entertaining tour of the night sky’s constellations by one of the observatory’s educators. He had a fabulous green laser pointer that he used to point out stars and constellations—must look into getting one of those things. It looked like the beam went into outer space! The International Space Station flew over during his program and he pointed it out with the laser. Hope he didn’t blind the folks on it!

We made it back down the mountain in the dark without colliding with any deer or javelina, pulling into our camping spot about midnight. Guess our adrenaline was still flowing because we weren’t too sleepy and watched an old Magnum P.I. episode streamed on Jack’s iPad Mini before finally crashing.

State count: still 8 [Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas]

Odometer count:

Surber, VA: 107,435

Fort Davis, TX: 110,991

Accommodations avg cost: 25 nights @ $15.76/night