Battles, Birds and Snakes

Texas is rich in history, which pleases Joe as he loves reading about all aspects of it. Recently, we visited the battlefields at Palo Alto in Brownsville,TX. Palo Alto was the site of the first battle of the US/Mexican war in 1846.The Visitor's Center featured a video educating viewers of the timetable, the participants, the reasons, and the area covered by the US/Mexican war, with perspectives from both countries. As we patiently watched the video and took it all in, I was anxious to get outdoors to see the birds!  Joe was anxious to get into the main area of the Center to start reading every little detail, on every plaque and poster. Wonderful! Something that interests both of us, at the same place!
Joe stayed in the Center reading while I headed outside with my binoculars
around my neck. I walked 1 1/2 miles, through the battlefield, now with
winding, blacktopped paths for easy walking, to view a nest of the Black-Shouldered Kite. The Kite must've been notified of my presence, as it gracefully flew up from the brush! How fortunate to be there at that moment.

I walked back to find Joe still reading. As closing time was approaching we decided to return to Palo Alto another day, for Joe to resume reading and for me to walk the battlefields looking for more of my feathered friends.

I'm contemplating wearing my boots next time we go out there, as there were several signs on the paths, to be careful and watch for snakes. Texas has several venomous snakes. The two in our area are the Western

Diamondback Rattlesnake and the Coral Snake. A non-venomous snake that we have encountered here is the Indigo Snake, which eats the Diamondback Rattlesnake.

We were walking down a path, at Laguna Atascosa, I was leading the

way and 3ft. in front of me was an Indigo snake basking, in the

sun. I stopped abrutly, holding Joe back. (He is deathly afraid of

snakes!) We gently walked around our 5ft. "friend" so I could get a

picture. I only got the tail end as it slipped into the tall grass.

I felt fairly comfortable quietly stepping

around it, as an Indigo snakes

favorite food is any type of rodent, not people!