Actually, I've never heard anybody say that, but I'm sure somebody thinks it. And, I'm here to prove that person wrong. WRONG!
A few days ago, we found ourselves in Norias, Texas, located about an hour north of Brownsville, or three hours south of San Antonio. In the Travel Haze in which we find ourselves, we aren't completely sure how we got there, but presumably it had something to do with the plane flight from Chicago. Or where ever it was that we were on Tuesday. Or whatever day that was.
We were in Norias, population Nobody, for a tour of one part of King Ranch. This ranch was founded in the 1860s, and is comprised of multiple huge tracts of land that, combined, are larger than the state of Rhode Island. The land is managed for cattle ranching and farming, but also has hundreds of thousands of acres left in natural conditions that are managed for sustainable hunting.
[Aside: It turns out that people (and corporations, which we know are people, too) will pay tens of thousands of dollars per year to lease land in the middle of nowhere where they can take their friends and business associates for a nice relaxing hunt. Who knew?]
While learning about that part was interesting, our motivation for taking the tour was to see a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. This species is fairly common in Mexico and parts south, but can only be found in the US in a few places in southern Arizona and south Texas. Rather than trekking through miles of desert on our own, we decided to hire a guide, and the King Ranch tour was an ideal way to get our primary target while also having a chance at something else rare.
We met our guide at the gate to the Norias Division of the ranch at 8am, and spent the next few hours driving dirt roads, learning about the ecology and history of the area, and stopping every few minutes at groves of oak trees to listen and look for the owls. As the sun climbed and the temperature rose into the 90s, the going began to get rough:
- I stepped on a branch with 2"-long stiff and razor-sharp thorns. A thorn went through my boot and into my foot, and The Wife had to pull it out. While I looked away, of course.
- The Wife brushed past some kind of spiny plant, presumably an angry one with an attitude, and the plant furiously embedded several spines into her hand. We're still trying to get the last one out, two day later.
- Hidden in the grass was a long stiff branch, which reached up and tripped our experienced guide, causing him to go sprawling, breaking the mount on his scope and drawing blood from his arm.
As he said, "Here in South Texas, everything bites, stings, scratches, or pokes, and that's just the plants!"
But we soldiered on, and finally after hearing a call, we plunged into the bitey, stingy, scratchy, pokey underbrush (while I'm thinking, "Snakes! Snakes!"), popped out into a clearing, and managed to get our scope and binoculars onto a beautiful owl. I would share a picture, except I didn't take any, as my camera feared for its life and refused to leave the truck.
We're home now, getting some work done and recharging before our next adventure, which is currently scheduled to be a pelagic trip (OH JOY ANOTHER BOAT) out of San Diego this coming weekend. But, since migration is in full swing right now, who knows what will pop up between now and then?
Adios,
Me
No comments:
Post a Comment