February 23, 2007
one of the local volunteers were
out in his pickup collecting dead palm leaves for the Charro Days float.
Jimmy waved at us, shook hands and said hello. At the visitor
center we chatted with Cici. It was nice to see her and catch up a bit; she
has triplet grandchildren that are growing up. " As children grow their
problems grow and we have it in triplet" she said. We saw a chachalaca,
greenjay and some doves.
The big new at Sabal Palm is the start to the old house renavations; someday
that
will be the new visitor center and probably classrooms, although we think it
shoud be a B&B.
>From there we went to the Gladys Porter Zoo to visit our girilla friends.
They were out in the yard. The two sisters each have a young one to care for
and the three year old joined them under one of the rocks. It looked like
the moms were trying to put the young ones to sleep holding them still.
There were lots of school kids so we decided todo the zoo in reverse. The
flamingos are an other favorite of ours. We just love them stretching their
heads to see who is the tallest and squacking all the while. One seems to
have claimed a large rock in their enclosure and stands on it to be the
tallest. The young are losing their dark feathers and filling in with bright
orange ones. The tips of their wings under feathers will be the only dark
left as they mature. When they really get to squacking they will start the
march as we call it. All of them seem to hear a que from somewhere and march
around the enclosure. The pink flamingos down near the lake at the zoo do
not demonstrate these behaviors. Will played with his cockatoo friend giving
him a stick. The bird pushes it back out of the cage so that Will can play
tug of war with it. The caracara always rewards us as we cluck at him by
clucking back then throwing his head back to reveal his beautiful neck
feathers. Each trip through the aviary we find a few colorful feathers to
add to our collection. Then it was off to the chimps. Today one was out
looking for that snake again. He was pretty brave sticking his nose right
down the hole where the cement meets the grass. He didn't find anythng. The
old male was at the door to the enclosure banging and swaying trying to get
in with no luck. He would become frustrated and run after one of the other
chimps who would yell and run away. The zoo lost their elephant; he was
lonely and the zoo police said that the enclosure was too small. They sent
him to a zoo that also had a lonely elephant, but had a big enclosure. In
the elephant's spot Brownsville has put the camels. We don't like it so well
because they are too high up and farther away now to watch. Before they were
level with the viewing area and there were benches around. The best benches
are the ones near the giraffe. We always sit there and enjoy watching those
graceful animals. There are seven in the enclosure all of different ages and
sizes.
Now we come to the best part of the zoo trip: the mandrill and the tigers.
The male mandrill with his brightly colored face came right up to the window
today to see us tossing our caps. The young one comes over each time, but it
was a real treat to see the male who usually sits on the far wall, come
right up to the class. He is a beautiful creature. He sat looking and bared
his teeth, big long thick teeth demonstrating that he was not afraid. We
were also rewarded by the tigers who also liked the tossing caps. They came
right up to the glass and watched the show. Two of them wanted to come
closer, but know that the wire would give them a shock so stayed back. These
are Sumatian Tigers; they are really big. Their paws are bigger that our
heads.
We went to Ringold Park across the street and parked near the resacca, like
a canal. There we made dinner. the geese and ducks joined us. The geese were
black with a dark green you could just make out when they turned in the
light. Some had red pearls of skin along their heads, others had white heads
with red around the eyes. One poor guy had a broken wing. The liked the
bread we tossed them. Willhad them eating out of his hand. When Kathy tried
it the dumb thing about took her entire hand! We found an internet
connection and did some computer work til the sun set then drove to the
Walmart outside of the city. After shopping we watched Nell with Jodi
Foster.
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