Mandatory working from home is good for limiting virus spread, and it is good for bird watching. I identified 35 different birds from my bird watching, many I saw for the first time, from working around our neighborhood, community parks and state parks.
I selected 12 bird photos for our 2021 family calendar. Many more birds are left out.
Ross's goose and snow goose at Hagerman Wildlife Refuge, December 2020
Great Heron at Russel Creek Pond
Northern Cardinal in a neighbor's yard
Snow egret at a swamp in New Orleans
Yellow Crowned Night Heron at
Killdeer by a storm water drainage
Red-Tailed Hawk in a pine tree by a soccer field at Russell Creek Park
We have had as many outdoor adventures as we had in in previous years despite covid-19 pandemic. Of course many activities are close to home.
In January, our whole family went skiing at Park City Utah - a bucket item. It did not disappoint. It was the only family reunion for the year.
In February Allan went to Houston to reunite with middle school classmates - one of them lives in China, and was stranded in Houston due to covid-19 pandemic in China at the time.
Hiking on Lone star trail near Conroe
In March, Spring break, right before pandemic was declared nation wide, Nicholas and us visited New Orleans for the first time. In addition to the usual plantation, French quarter, swamps, we also explored the mouth of Mississippi river. The most amazing part of the part was to witness the raccoon trying to get food next to an alligator.
April was a typical slow month as far as outdoor adventures are concerned. Due to covid restriction, we started working from home and we also started walking around our neighborhood twice a day. What a surprise :) we live in a very beautiful and vibrant area - there is much to explore!
In May, we went to Oak point park and nature preserve, a city park, for the second time for the year - with Nicholas this time. There were more colors on the prairie and we heard bird songs there all the the time.
Bird watching becomes our pastime. The most amazing thing we witnessed was the whole process of house finches making nest in the flower basket on our front door, from incubation, hatching, nestling … empty nest during the month of June. We observed many more birds during our twice daily walking, several new species at least to our observations - we saw yellow crowned night heron for the first time at our community pond, and then saw it a couple more times, once at residential area (a rarity) at twilight! We observed red-tailed hawk eating mice live! and then saw the hawks many more times.
The most anticipated outdoor adventure for the year is our planned July trip to Mt Elbert, the highest mountain in Colorado, a sequel to our trip to Quandary Peak in 2019. Magnificent mountains, turquoise lakes, wild flowers, ever changing clouds, what made the trip more satisfying was that Nichols climbed the mountain with us.
In August, we sent Nicholas to college at Pittsburg. We went to McConnell Mill State Park, which is 40 miles north to Pittsburgh ,on Sunday August 23, 2020. The park is named after an colonial time built mill, but is famous for its whitewater creek - Slipper Rock Creek.
Our most significant event for outdoor adventures was to realize the dream of owning a kayak so we can explore lakes and rivers on a kayak without depending on rental. We purchased our inflatable kayak Emma in August, and started exploring lakes in North Texas in kayak in September. We kayaked every week until early November when water was getting too cold.
In October we visited Hagerman Wildlife refuge, which is only 50 miles north from our house. The last time we visited there was in 2011! In addition to the usual great herons and grand egrets, we observed migrating white pelican stop-by the refuge. We also kayaked in Big Mineral Creek there but could not get to the migrating birds due to restrictions for conservation.
We went foliage watching and kayaking at Lake Murray in Oklahoma during the first week of November - kayaking on the lake twice, hiking in woods with friends.
In December we went back to Hagerman wildlife refuge to see migrating snow geese - what a spectacular scenes of snow geese taking off, circling and landing. We will visit Ray Robert this weekend with a few families to close out the year 2020 in nature!
In summary, the most significant event of the year is the purchase of an inflatable tandem kayak, which enables us to explore lakes and rivers. The most anticipated event is the climb of Mt Elbert. The most exploratory event is the trip to NOLA.
We had out usual ski trip, spring break trip and summer trip. We had an added fall trip to Pittsburg. So we had more big trips than before.
We had more trips to state parks than before - Lake Texoma - Eisenhower State Park (2), Lake Ray Roberts (2), Lake Murray (1).
We explored our community parks and neighborhood daily !
Exploring and enjoying nature make us feel so alive!
