Mother's Day at Hagerman Wildlife Refuge

Our camping group went to Hagerman Wildlife Refuge for a day trip on Mother's day, May 9th, 2021. Despite the weather forecast of rains, it turned out to be a perfect day for us - it was cloudy and breezy in the morning - great for hiking, and sunny and windy in the afternoon - perfect for flying kites!

Hiking

We gathered  at the Butterfly Garden in front of the visitor center and started on Harris Creek Trail, which has three loops, duck pond loop, crawfish pond loop and prairie loop. As shown in the trail map, up to crawfish trail, the trail is shaded in woods, and beyond it, it is on open prairie.

the butterfly garden in front of the visitor center

As we stepped into the woods at trail head, we could hear almost continuous bird chirpings, but barely could see one since the wood is so dense, and the birds are well camouflaged. By the sound, I could tell there were at least 4 or 5 different birds in the area. The group, especially moms were talking excitedly, so any birds close to the trail were scared away before I could spot them. So I fell back a bit intentionally to try to see some birds. The most vocal and thus easily spotted bird is the dickcissel. Dickcissel looks like sparrow, it has a very colorful neck, white feather under the beak and yellow chest, the male has a black patch at the throat. The most vocal bird was male disckcissels!  At the far end of the prairie loop, there were quite a few dickcissels, and I was more than happy to tell others where the birds were, their features.... other birds we spotted were Northern Cardinals

Another feature of this trail is that there are many ponds, six to be exact, dotted the longest loop. 

Walking and talking, less than one hour we finished the two mile long trail, returned to trail head! 

It was too early for picnic, so we went on Raasch trail in impromptu, which is located at the back of the visitor center. There were even more birds, more flowers on this trail. Again Dickcissel is one of the most vocal birds. Another vocal birds are Bobolink, they are black birds with yellow back head, and white streak on their wings. They typically chirp on the top of a bush individually, I saw them fly in flock as well. Another easily spotted birds are red-winged black birds, they are less vocal than the dickcissel or bobolink.....With lake Texoma in the background, a blue bird was wandering around, and vultures glided in the sky  magnificently with wings fully expanded....

This bird was in backlight

dickcissel

chirping dickcissel

wild flowers dotted the trail 

Texas paint brush

A bird house by a pond

moms and a couple dads on the trail

Dickcissel 

Dickcissel in the flight

Bobolink

A flock of bobolink

Lake Texoma in the background

A blue on prairie 

A soaring vulture

Flying Kites

We had a hearty picnic in one of the pergola, in addition to sandwiches, chips, baked jalapeno bread, we also shared beef tendon, cocktail shrimps and oranges. After the picnic, we sat around and talked more. Then I proposed to fly kites before going home since we were the only family who brought kayak. Everyone was pleasantly surprised and agreed to gave it a try.

 We brought 3 kites with us. Fortunately we tried to fly one of the bird shaped kites on Friday at home, and found that it was too worn down to fly. So we fixed it and the other bird kite using tapes and duct tapes!  Not knowing if they would work or not, Lily started flying the modern design kite, which was also in the best condition. After a couple tries it soared into sky and quickly reached the length of the string. Soon the red bird kite was flying high as well. The blue bird kite was more challenging to fly due to imbalance of the tapes on its wings, but it climbed up and stayed up in the sky.

The whole group was fixated with the kites in the sky, and real birds got curious and flew close to the kites to check them out!  We took turns to fly kites and everyone was taking pictures when not flying kites. 

Time flew as we were enthralled by the flying kites. 

White Clouds Blue Sky

Kites Flying High

Return to Childhood

Best Mother's day the Moms had 

Explore Lake Texoma - from the shores

The day before our best kayaking trip , May 1st, 2021, we hiked and camped at Eisenhower State Park.

It rained heavily the day before, the trail was muddy. We hiked only about one kilometers on Ike's hike and bike trail from the shelter we rented, and exited to the rocky shore. We lingered at the shore for over 30 minutes to explore the rocks and enjoy the surroundings. On the way back to tent site, we actually walked on the paved road, the wild flowers along the way attracted our attentions!

The next morning, we walked down hill from our tent ground to the edge of high bluff over the the rocky shore, to see the misty lake, to hear songs of birds, and to observe very large fishes in the shallow water of rocky shore by chance. No target, no destination, we just immersed ourselves in the nature, and let our curiosity led us to explore!  

The cove at Ammonite Crossing

Fishing pier at the mouth of the cove

Huge rock by the shore

mimosa pudica

Blue Wild Indigo

misty

dew drops

a downy wood pecker

big fishes

wax wings (birds)

Explore Lake Texoma

 Lake Texoma is one of the largest reservoirs in United States, and it sits across the border of  Oklahoma and Texas. The first time we visited Lake Texoma was about 10 years ago, during a trip to Hagerman Wildlife Refuge, which is at the southern tip of the lake, and then a year later to Eisenhower State Park, by the lake shore, near the Denison Dam. The lake has rocky shorelines with numerous coves at the park, great for kayaking on the water and hiking and camping along the shoreline.

Lake Texoma

In the past couple of years, since we bought the inflatable kayak Emma, Lake Texoma has become our most favorable place for outdoor activities, overtaking Lake Ray Roberts.  We went to Lake Ray Robert twice, and Lake Texoma 6 times! 

Most recently we went to Lake Texoma on May 1st, camping and hiking at Eisenhower State Park as usual. What was different this time is that we went beyond Park boundary to look for a new shoreline for kayaking. Looking at the map we decided to explore the Little Mineral Arm, a smaller finger of the lake, or a large cove, which is more than 4 miles away from Eisenhower State Park. To fully explore the little mineral arm, we drove to a boat ramp at the southern tip of little mineral arm.

The boat ramp at southern tip of little mineral arm, is a community boat ramp, one has to pay $10 for boat launch. We got there after a hearty lunch at La Catrina Street Tacos on the road from Eisenhower park.

The timing was perfect, the clouds broke apart, the Sun shone on us, and the passing clouds provided much needed shade from time to time, since we did not bring sunscreen. The exploration off the beaten path paid off. Away from major attractions, little mineral arm was very quiet that early Sunday afternoon, two boys were fishing on the pier near the boat ramp, a fishing boat was cruising in the water. 

The blue sky, white clouds and the green trees formed beautiful tapestries every direction we looked at. It was so quiet, the only sound we heard was from our own paddling, when we paused, we heard bird songs from woods on the shore, clear, crisp and sweet! A significant difference between the shoreline here and that at the state park is that the shore here is much less rocky, and some portions have red mud bank.

When we turned into the first small cove, it was full of green and the familiar sweet whistles from Northern Cardinal made us look around. It was not difficult to locate the bright colored bird! It looked at us curiously and kept chirping. Eventually it flew away into the green leaves.

As we paddled northward, close to the shore, we saw some small birds keep taking off the beach ahead of us. They camouflaged so well we could not see them unless they fly, they are sandpipers.

Some smaller egrets were spotted ahead on the shore and on the rocky beach, they were most likely to be snowy egret. As we got closer to them they flew away. A double crested cormorant perching on a log was startled, it ran on water a few steps during take-off. Turtles, sun bathing on logs as always, are a little bit different from turtles at other lakes of North Texas, their shells seem to be a bit brighter shade of green. A great heron flew over and stopped to rest on a snag. Not a great amount of bird during this Sunny afternoon, but changing scenes of the variety of birds in different settings, enthralled us.

sandpiper

The west shore of little mineral arm has houses,  piers, boat ramps, and buoys. A giant tire formed barrier at a small marina attracted turtles, gulls and shore birds. A different vista.

When we paddled into another cove, quit a few egrets large and small stood in the shallow water at far end, with a heron in the mix. We stayed at distance so not to disturb them. A couple more egrets flew in to join them, and a few minutes later, they took off, circled around and landed where they were.

Then a double crest cormorant was chasing a small light color bird, likely juvenile ring billed gull, over our heads, as we continued our return trip. The gull flew up and down with a couple sharp turns, the big black bird eventually gave up and flew away. The gull continued to circle over our heads and dipped into the lake a couple of times. When we passed the tire formed barrier again, a few ducks joined the gulls, turtles and sandpiper there. Later we witnessed 4 grand egrets lined up on the shore in large spacing in a cove, taking turns to wind surfing!!

This is one of longest kayaking we have ever had, both in time, about five hours on the water and in distance paddled, more than 8 miles! It is the best kayaking trip we have ever had.