Jan 13-16

As much as we like to volunteer and like our work, we really like our days off so much better!  We headed out early on Sunday to go to Santa Ana WLR (our previous volunteer refuge) to get a good walk in and to look for birds.  They were having some kind of outreach program with 120 children that day.  We were told where they would be, and advised to avoid that area.  No problem, we know the refuge very well and we know where we like to walk and find birds.  We did a good job of avoiding the program.

We then headed to find a burrowing owl, little did we know there was a "bar" right by the location of the owls.  Music was blaring, people were dancing and drinking.  After finding the owl we thought we should check out the bar since we were parked in their parking lot. What a place. filled with "winter Texans", locals and a few motorcycle members.  The band was pretty good and the dance floor was packed with line dancers and two steppers.

The rain on Tues stayed away until about noon, after that we pretty much stayed inside, shopping, eating and watching TV.

Wednesday on our morning walk we ran into the volunteers that were giving a birding tour.  There was room on the van so we tagged along.  Its about 4.5 hours for the tour, we were not prepared to go, no camera, no lunch, no water but we hopped on the van anyway.  It was a great tour with lots of birds and a Woodstork, which is rare here in Texas.

Fun time off but now back to work...