Warning - LOTS of bird photos :)

We're still in the campsite by the Rio Grand and still no mice. Tomorrow I have mail coming and might move on after I receive it up at the Visitor's Center.  My shopping list is getting long and I think I want to get my shopping done and relocate to the next campground before the weekend comes.

I have a lot of photos in this post, but I always reduce my pictures to 800 x 600 px, so hopefully you'll have no problems opening them. 

Birds at Caballo Lake - Riverside Campground

I'm not sure what this bird is - he's got quite the "do" though.  Anybody know? I found three birds in my field guide that might have worked, but I don't know.  Can you see his whiskers?

Thank you to everyone who commented with a suggestion - the consensus is that he is a Brown-crested Flycatcher. The photos in my field guides show other Flycatchers that look very much the same, and none of them has this wonderful crest, so I'm thinking he might be showing off for a female?  I guess his top feathers are normally flat on his head - I wouldn't have noticed him half as much if that's how he appeared - maybe I'm part bird...  I was sure impressed!

Three Great Blue Herons - I didn't see the third one until I pulled up the photo on the computer:

Great White Egret:

Mallards:

I can't find this bird with the yellow belly:

Not sure about this guy, either:

More Northern Shovelers:

Spotted Sandpiper:

Yellow Warbler:

Bullock's Oriole:

Hummer - female Black-chinned?

Northern Mockingbird:

White-crowned Sparrow:

American Robin:

Phainopepla:

When he flew away I saw the white under his wings:

I can't find this bird in the field guide, either:

And here are two fish photos when they were rolling around in the water:

That's a lot of photos, I know.  If you're still here with us, thanks!

A big WELCOME to two new Followers:

Susan Hammer - You don't show any information, so all I can do is give you a big welcome to our blog - and thank you for following along with us, Susan!

Duane has a blog - Duane's World.   It isn't an RV blog, but he says he loves to write - me too! - and wants to share some ideas with the world.  Thanks for becoming a Follower, Duane!

Welcome aboard to you both, we're happy to have you following along!

From me and Katie, have a great Tuesday, everyone!  :)

Squirrels, Kangaroo Rat, Mouse and 2 new birds!

It seems nothing much is going on until I look at all the photos I have waiting to be posted.

Our last day at Elephant Butte main campground I had a visit from Donna and Bob, whom I met at Rock Hound and then saw again at Poncho Villa.  I was packing up to leave when they drove up, and we spent some time visiting.  They were looking for another friend who wasn't home and saw us outside, and stopped for a bit.  After they left Tom and Roxi came over for a visit.  I met Tom at Quartzsite, and he had stopped by the day before.  He had been driving by, and recognized me.  We sat down and visited for a while, and it turns out he is camping where Roxi is, and just met her that morning.  That next morning they both came over to visit.  I was just packed up and was ready to leave, so they got there just in time.  

After the Easter weekend and all the craziness, I wanted to be in a quieter place.  So we drove out of the main park and started driving to the South Monticello campground.  I wanted to park in the parking lot above the boat ramp directly below the campground.  We stayed overnight, but I felt too isolated, so we got back on the road.

As soon as we hit the road, Katie started barking and wouldn't stop.  She was just sitting in her car seat, barking and trying to sniff the dashboard.  Oh-oh!  I stopped the car at the first pull-out and opened the hood.  EEEEKKKKK!  There was a Kangaroo Rat looking at me, sitting in a pile of cedar bits spilling out from the Fresh Cab he had chewed open. I jumped back and screamed and dropped the hood.  This photo from the Internet is what he looked like - up on his back legs looking right at me:

I'm sure he jumped back and screamed, as well, and hustled down through the engine onto the road and ran away.  When I got back with my Reacher in case I had to remove him, opened the hood again and checked, he was gone.  I checked the engine, but no damage.  Whew.  Back on the road with Kudos to Katie.  (I thought he was a pack rat until I went on-line for a photo, and realized it was a Kangaroo Rat.  I've never seen one of these guys before.)

We went into T or C and did laundry, gassed up the truck, shopped at Wal-Mart and then headed back to Caballo Lake.

I picked a campsite across from the showers which was up a ways from our previous site where we got the mice last time.  Next morning we had two squirrels and one mouse stuck on our traps in the engine.  I don't mind getting the mice because they are easy to kill (sorry), but the squirrels are different.  They were large enough to get themselves off the sticky stuff, but I don't want to go through that again.  Trust me, it hurt me way more than it hurt them.  I had no idea the squirrels were getting into the engine.  I removed the sticky traps and put small baited enclosed mouse traps in the engine with duct tape.  Then we moved down the road to be along the river and hopefully away from the squirrels.

It's peaceful here and this area is empty except for us and Ryan - The New Age Nomad, who we finally met.



When Katie and I pass by his campsite on our walks, he usually comes out to say hi and talk for while.  He's a good neighbor, and it's nice to have someone else down here with us.  It's Thursday evening, and I'm surprised we haven't gotten more campers here for the weekend.

I haven't seen a single squirrel here, even though we're pretty close to the main Riverside Campground.  Weird, but I'm happy!  I hope we'll be able to stay here the full two weeks, and so far no critters to be seen.  Just birds and the occasional duck on the river.   

Here are some of the birds I've snapped in the last week.  I think they are all from Elephant Butte down by the boat ramp.

This is a new bird for me, a Clark's Grebe:

This Killdeer was in the parking lot and we saw him as we were walking along.  He didn't seem bothered that we were there:

Pretty lizard with turquoise markings:

This is another new bird for me - a female Ring-necked duck:

I think this is a Sandpiper, or maybe a Willet?  Hazel thinks it might be a Willet, which was my second choice.  If so, then it's another First Sighting:

And some of the flowering plants at Elephant Butte State Park:

WELCOME to our newest follower, Susan Hammer.  Susan doesn't show any information, so I can't give you any links.  Susan, if you have a blog, let me know and I'll post it so our readers can check it out.  Thanks for following along with me and Katie - Welcome Aboard!  :)

From me and Katie, have a great Thursday, everybody!  :)

Thank God it's Monday!

Look what I saw walking in front of The Palms the other day:

Yup!  A coyote was in the area.  It's been a while since I've seen one, and I wasn't expecting any to be here in this campground.   He just walked along, crossed the street in front of a car, and disappeared into the desert bushes.

I took some photos the night of the Lunar Eclipse - the full moon was beautiful and the sunset in the east was gorgeous, too.

 

On Saturday there was going to be a big Easter Egg Hunt down on the beach.  Unfortunately the rain started Friday night, and Saturday was grey, windy and rainy until the afternoon, so I don't know if the event was held.

Saturday morning there was something going on down where the Egg Hunt was going to be.  A large firetruck drove past our site headed in that direction, and I thought it was there for the crowd that would show up for the hunt, you know - for the kids to look at and get to talk to a real fireman.

 

Then two more large fire engines and one Fire Department car went past in the same direction.  That seemed excessive for visiting an Easter Egg Hunt.  I wondered what was going on.  Then a bunch of Park vehicles went past in the same direction.  Then some police cars.  Next two ambulances.  Shortly thereafter I heard a helicopter going overhead, and it circled around and landed nearby. 

I never did hear what happened, but it must have been something big.  It was quite a while before the official vehicles drove back toward the park entrance. 

It cleared up in the afternoon and Easter Sunday was nice, too.  This photo was taken on our walk Sunday; it was a beautiful day:

On the way back down to our site, I saw a huge spider in the road.  It had to be 3 or 4 inches long.  Katie sniffed it, and I yanked her away from it.  I went kind of close to it, but didn't want to get too close.  I was thinking, "Boy, is this spider going to be great for the blog!" and got a picture.  When I got home and pulled it up on the computer this is what I saw:

Do you think someone was watching out the window - laughing?  Yup, I think I was punked.  It sure was ugly, even if it WAS fake and missing most of it's legs.  :)

We moved this morning.  

Until this morning we were up over the lake in the dry camping sites.  Wow, this weekend was brutal - since our site was right on the road going down to the water there was constant traffic going by, even till 11 pm on the weekend.  

People kept using our site as a turn around - I thought we'd be side-swiped more than once.  

One guy in a van decided to overnight in front of The Palms.  That was sure nice of him to use part of my campsite???!!!   Don't you just love holiday weekends?

And then around 9:30 on Saturday night a guy in a big truck full of people drove right into my site behind The Palms and ran over my little black table.  Can you believe it?  I had moved the chairs into the shelter because of the rain, so it was just the rug, the table and some rocks to hold the rug down.

Picture this scene without the chairs - and with more big rocks to hold the rug down in the wind. 

I went out and checked out what in the world he was doing, he said he thought it was an empty site.  I said, "At 9:30 on a Saturday night on a holiday weekend, you thought you were going to get an empty site???   Did you NOT see my motor home right THERE???"  He said yes, but there was room between it and the shelter, so he thought it was vacant.  I suspect a lot of alcohol was consumed this weekend!  

So this morning we moved to another area where we aren't surrounded by a lot of other people and there's not a lot of traffic going by.  Peace and Quiet - much better!

It's actually amazing how seldom I'm bothered by other campers; when it happens it's usually weekenders during a holiday weekend. I guess if I was living in a house somewhere and people came to my street and partied for three days I wouldn't like that either.  But I DO remember back in the olden days when I was the one doing the partying.  So I try to remember that, too, and always sigh in relief when the campground is quiet again.  :)

We should sleep well tonight - Katie and I hope you do, too!  :)

FINALLY!

A Roadrunner!  I was working in the kitchen and noticed a movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked out I saw a very large Roadrunner walking along the post line behind The Palms.

Of course, I  s-l-o-w-l-y  rushed to get my camera.  I've learned that if I RUN, then Katie gets excited and starts barking, and when I get back to the window, the bird will be gone.  GRRR.   So I did a fast walk, got the camera, turned it on, and went back to my kitchen window and started snapping.

I've never noticed the iridescence in their feathers before.  This morning the sun was catching his feathers just right for me to see it.

He jumped up on a post and started preening, fluffing up his feathers, etc., just like a regular bird.  As I was snapping photos I realized he IS just a regular bird.  I guess since he is always just running by, I've never seen one act like a bird.  Never seen one fly, never seen one preening, flying here and there, etc.

Unfortunately most of the pictures didn't come out - too much in the background, I think, and I was having problems focusing clearly on the Roadrunner.  Such a bummer.

There was a breeze blowing his feathers up.

He stayed on the post for a while, then jumped down, walked along a little and jumped up on another post.  He totally fluffed up on the way, but I couldn't get a clear photo.  I'm going to show you, anyway, even though it's a really bad photo.  I don't know why these didn't come out, I could clearly see him, but I was shooting at an angle through the thick kitchen window glass, and maybe that made a difference.  He fluffed up and just stood there, kind of like the Turkey Buzzards when they hold out their wings to cool off and dry their feathers. 

Then he jumped up on another post, preened a little, jumped down from that post, and headed toward The Palms.  He looked around, turned around and headed off down the road. 

Bye-bye Roadrunner, y'all come back soon, ya hear?  

That just made my day!

From me and Katie, have a great Thursday, everyone!  :)

Wordless Wednesday - This is how Amazon.com ships cars

Interesting.

From me and Katie, have a great Wordless Wednesday, everyone!  :)