Another cold front is moving in for Christmas. The wind's been blowing up to 30mph for the past couple of days. Today the clouds moved in. There's absolutely no chance of open water paddling with those kinds of wind.
Today seemed a good time to go up to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge for a looksee. The refuge is on the coast approximately 50 miles north of Corpus Christi near Port Lavaca. The main attraction to the 59K acres refuge is its the only wintering place for the endangered Whooping Crane in the U.S.
Driving up to the refuge I knew there would be a $3 charge. Instead I bought a Golden Eagle Passport for $65. This entitles me to access to all national parks, historic sites, wildlife refuges and some other things for the next 12 months. Since I plan on visiting a lot of national parks in the southwest I thought it would go well with the Texas Conservation Passport I already have.
After browsing through the interpretive center I picked up a map and hit the trails. The 1.4 Heron Flats Trail took me past some marshy mud flats since the tide was out. Off in the distance I saw three white birds I took to be egrets. The trail looped around and on the way back I found a platform with a telescope I didn't bother to use.
I was just standing there gazing over the flats when a couple came up with binoculars and seemed all excited. As it turns out, those three white birds were in fact whooping cranes. I had difficulty using the telescope because some bushes obscured the cranes. Eventually one of them and then another moved into range and I got a good look at them. Wow!
At five feet tall, the whooping crane is supposedly America's tallest bird. It is certainly tall and has a long body to go with it. Its wing span is seven feet and it has black and red markings on its face and bill. Since they mate for life I assume I was looking at a pair and a mostly grown offspring. Cool stuff! A little later I saw them fly overhead. They fly with necks extended, more like an Ibis than an egret or heron that fly with their necks all scrunched up.
Earlier I had seen several deer and then saw several more out on the flats. Alligators inhabit the ponds and canals in the refuge but they were buried in the mud or something on this blustery day. I did see a couple families of feral hogs but was hoping to see some javelinas, a pig like mammal, but no luck on them.
A couple of the trials had some great stands of live oaks all twisted and knarly. Some of them seemed to be quite old, somewhere around 400-500 years old.