LenaLynx: Chasing rays and calling jays in Aransas!

Well I was lucky enough to get to tag along on this years Ornithology class trip to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge! By lucky I mean Ray needed another driver and I happened to fit the bill. Nevertheless! It was a fantastic trip full of random adventures, joyous laughter with fellow wildlifers as well as lots and lots (and lots!) of birdwatching. There is no way to describe all of the memories as it would take a novel to hold them all so I will provide you with some of the highlights and hope that that will temper your appetite for awesomeness!

We left bright and early Thursday morning (Feb. 28, 2013) and established the caravan pecking order straightway. Ray took the lead as our fearless leader and navigator while Jarret the Teaching Assistant was kind enough to haul most of the equipment and students. I brought up the rear with my delightfully unruly, entirely female charges plus one Canadian. We aptly named our crew and vehicle "The Juicy Caboose" and referred to it by name all weekend, garnering many laughs and maybe an eye-roll or two. We got into Aransas at about 7:00 pm that night and promptly scouted out our accommodations for the weekend, the YETA. It's a lovely screened-in shelter with a cement floor and plenty of picnic tables. The area overlooks San Antonio Bay and is quite sandy as well as shaded by sea-breeze-twisted old gnarly oaks. After an inevitable scrambling territorial display to claim picnic tables and sleeping spaces we settled down to a hasty dinner of sandwiches, chips and Gatorade. We then jumped into the vehicles again (as if we hadn't had enough driving during the previous 12+ hours) and headed out for spotlighting and road cruising. We stopped at Hog Lake and spotlighted for American alligators - I can't tell you how excited we were to see and possibly catch one! We spotted quite a few and tramped through the marsh for a closer look but they were in too deep of water. I was a short distance from the group watching a mammal on the far bank that appeared to be a raccoon. I slogged closer to get a better look, thanking my lucky stars that I had worn my "duck boots" and was not already getting my footgear wet as so many of the other students were forced to do. While stalking the raccoon I saw more eye-shine and a green lump. I assumed it was a frog and kept going. Well, lo and behold, I quickly saw that my "frog" was an alligator snout pointed right at me and just begging to be caught! I turned and yelled to the others, "I got one!! It's a little guy, we can get 'em!!" There was a brief moment of stunned silence broken only by Ray muttering, "Oh here we go" before a veritable SEA of headlights came sprinting at me; Matlack in the lead! He and Jarret positioned themselves on either side and showed us the proper technique to safely catch and restrain an alligator. Turns out my "little guy" was 5-6ft long so there was some ridicule of course. I'm stickin' to my guns though, that's a little one!! I want to catch a 10-footer!! Jarret then showed us a safe release and we left the gator to his business while we tramped off to search for more of his brethren and any other wildlife. We did a few more laps of the loop and spotted feral hogs, raccoons, cottontails and an opossum before we called it a night. All I will say about that night was it was COLD and that despite my warm clothes and sleeping bag I wished for death more than once!

The next morning we were up and birding along the bay. There were plenty of Brown and American White Pelicans, Laughing Gulls, Great Blue Herons and Northern Cardinals. We went to several areas in the park including the Tower to look for Whooping Cranes, the refuge's most famous species but fortune did not favor us that day. That afternoon we assembled a "shore party" as I called it for a supply run to Wal-Mart. I was not the only one unprepared for cold nights! On the way out we spotted two Crested Caracaras perched in a tree as well as many Black and Turkey Vultures. That night, James decided to brave the sea of estrogen and drive the Caboose when we set out to spotlight. We stopped at several alligator ponds and called them in with baby alligator distress calls which did not fool them for a second. When the coyotes cranked up for their nightly performance Jen and I stood on the bank and howled along with them. I took over driving so that James could jump out to catch anything that presented itself. Things were going along fine until I noticed a small mammal running in front of Jarret driving the front van. I couldn't tell what it was but I was shocked that they were driving and not trying to catch it. In hindsight, maybe that should have been a clue. All I could see was a bouncy black thing running and I yelped, "It's running like a weasel!" That was all it took for James to bellow, "Stop - I'm getting out!!" He did and took off running next to the lead van. Thinking the others meant to follow him I yelled "GO! GO! GO!" very much in a drill sergeant manner, as I am known to do. The poor girls piled out of the van and followed James who was bearing down on a....skunk. It was a skunk. Not a weasel. Well, who knew?! Actually, the front van did which is why they were safely driving along and not dashing through the darkness like my crew. After much deliberation we decided that we could never admit that it was just a skunk and that it must have in fact been a new species, called a "Skweasel" and the sound it makes is "GO GO GO!!!"

The next day, Saturday, we left the refuge to explore Goose Island State Park, Rockport, Aransas Pass and Port Aransas. On the way out we spotted a fresh feral hog carcass with a large crowd of vultures and a bobcat walking along a trail. You can imagine the shrieking and high-fives following the sighting of that cat!! All right, most of it was me....but the others were excited too! After Goose Island we saw "the Big Tree" which is approximately 1,000 years old and very impressive. We also got a very, very far away look at some flying Whooping Cranes. Luckily, someone informed us that there were others much closer and so we jumped into the vans, drove about 6 blocks and pulled over next to a backyard where four of them were foraging. We set up spotting scopes and filled our eyes with the graceful, highly endangered cranes. We then took the ferry across to Port Aransas and walked out on the jetty. It was incredibly beautiful with the aquamarine water, bracing wind and dignified pelicans waddling about. We watched porpoises dive among cormorants and sea turtles surface in the waves. After more birding at a few more places we had dinner at a local seafood restaurant and drove home.

The next day was a very relaxed, explore-the-refuge day and much warmer. We walked down to the beach and waded in the cold, clear water. After awhile your feet became numb and then it was quite pleasant! I joined Jarret and James as they shuffled along looking for stingrays. Jarret scared up a cownose ray and the chase was on! We were dashing through the water trying to get close enough for a picture and succeeding only in drenching ourselves. Soon a few more students joined us and we formed a ray-interception line. We decided we simply had to catch one and made various plans and stratagems to achieve this. Every few minutes we'd spot one and it was a mad dash to surround it and herd it into our circle. Every time it would bump or touch us we'd invariably yell, flail and splash wildly in our attempt to ray-wrangle. I cannot tell you how much fun we were having on that beautiful beach with the incredible turquoise water, flawless sand, tolerant rays and uproarious laughter at ourselves. It should come as no surprise that we were not successful despite our many attempts and Jarret's diving headfirst after two of the rays. He is a track and field coach at WT and became famous in our group for charging through the knee-deep water with us laughing and screaming, "Knees to chest!! Commit! COMMIT!!" as we kept up as best we could (which was not very well, that guy is fast)! After what had to be hours we were exhausted and headed back to the YETA to change and eat. A few of us decided on a whim to drive to a likely spot down the road and try to call in some Green Jays, which only one or two of us had seen before. That quickly became a full mobilization of the troops with everyone packing into one van as best they could. We were unsuccessful with the jays and only managed to attract some chatty cardinals. Some of the students went to go look for American Bitterns, a bird species on everyone's hope-to-see list. After awhile, the Caboose packed up and decided to get started road-cruising. We were hoping we'd get a lot more reptile and amphibian activity since the day had been so much warmer but we were out of luck. We stopped in at another alligator pond and practiced our distress calls to the delight of a passing gaggle of senior citizens. Once it was dark we began spotlighting and using the night-vision monocular, one of my favorite toys. While we were watching a large alligator watch us, one of the girls said they saw an animal moving right towards us. It was a nine-banded armadillo. The desire to catch an armadillo on this trip was second only to catching an alligator so you can imagine the instant uproar. Unfortunately the armadillo was on the alligator's side of the fence. Jen and I looked at each other and in that split-second we both knew what the other was thinking, "Who's going over? You or me?" The 'dillo, no doubt sensing our nefarious plans headed straight for the gators! We stayed on our side and bided our time, hoping it would round the fence and therefore be fair game. It did and the race was on! Jen leaped after it, flashlight clamped between her teeth while I held the so-expensive-if-you-break-it-you-are-dead monocular and bellowed orders. Some girls ran to get lights, some ran to help Jen and some tried to keep an eye on the water and the alligator that had been watching us! Unfortunately, by the time we were better organized the armadillo had gotten into a thicket and there was no going in after it, especially that close to the water's edge! Dismayed, we shuffled away with many a backward-glance and consolations for one another.

The next morning (Monday, March 4th) we packed up early and hit the road. We saw more caracaras and a bald eagle on the way up and had unending conversations, laughter and reliving of our adventures. No one could stop talking about how much fun we'd had and the wonderful things we got to see. Plans were made for Skweasel t-shirts and a massive email swap of all pictures as soon as possible.

And that, dear readers, is really just another day in the life of a wildlifer!

P.S. Cownose rays are venomous, we discovered this once we got home. Oops!!