More regarding yesterday

 I was too exhausted to post more yesterday, but here are some of  Mike's photos taken then. The first two are the before and after of the old water feature. When I feel better I'll incorporate the new rock piles into the landscape. They're temporary. Some will be used in the new water feature. I had already removed half of them before yesterday -- those that weren't too heavy or concreted in.

This last photo is amazing to me because until I saw it I didn't not know that Green-tailed Towhees have red eyes.

Step One underway

Once again I found myself headed to the oasis at daybreak.

Michael Gray arrived to begin work on the new viewing blind and water feature. The first order of business is to demolish the old water feature and some old concrete curbs left over from when the area was a vegetable garden. Good progress was made even though I was having a puny day and was little help. Here's Michael with his awesome jackhammer, getting the job done.

Still at least one Anna's Hummingbird male around. (I wasn't too puny to take photos while Mike worked.)

I had been having vertigo for the past several days; that's nearly gone. But I had bad insomnia last night so got to the oasis already exhausted. By the time Mike arrived I was ready for bed. Gonna rest tomorrow and maybe get my covid vaccination, if all goes according to plan.

Green-tailed Towhee

When birds are few and far between, Scaled Quail can be relied upon to show up.

I wouldn't have the new water tank if it wasn't for David Sarkosi and I won't have the new water feature and viewing blind if not for Mike. Great guys!

Pushed myself too hard

 For two days I was going gung-ho to enclose the potty shed and hopefully improve it. When I'm all pumped up on adrenalin, I don't realize when too much is too much. So after I did all I could at the time I dragged myself to town to rest. But this time was different from other times and it wasn't that easy. I got puny with vertigo. The medicine for it made me sleep for the better part of two days.

Feeling a bit better tonight but have a hard time eating. Vertigo comes with nausea. But I'm not as sick with it as I have been at times in the past. I think I'll feel better tomorrow. I want to go back to the oasis and do more work the next day. It won't be as grueling as enclosing the shed was though. And I also cut off the huge limb on the Huisache tree that was bothering me. And other stuff. Didn't work any more on dismantling the old water feature. That's on my to-do list too. Here's the enclosed potty shed. I plan to make curtains for it so it'll be more private. The fiberglass siding I put up lets light through, but you can't see through it. It's a work in progress. Not sure how it'll work out ventilation-wise yet.

I painted the lower half of the window behind the toilet, but gonna make curtains for the door and other windows. May have to adjust things along the way if it gets too hot inside. I don't know how effective the screen above the fiberglass will be. 

To refresh your memory, this is how it looked inside in 2017, four years ago. But that privacy covering had totally disintegrated since then. Something had to be done. Wouldn't be good to have a lovely new viewing blind and a crappy (no pun intended) outhouse.

More hard work/play

I enjoy my work so can hardly justify calling it work, but either way, it totally exhausts me. The bees emptied a full feeder in one day. Gonna let it stay empty for a while, I think.

As I was watering trees today I noticed more damage from the New Year's snow storm, so I did what I could, which wasn't much. Here is a 6" diameter limb broken off of a large Huisache tree. I was able to cut off some of the end branches but didn't get the whole thing off yet. I plan to do it this weekend. At least I got the branches off the bushes they were smashing.

I hauled more rocks away from the old water feature. In the process I moved a prehistoric Indian metate that I had tried to incorporate into the water feature at one time. It weighs a ton, but with a dolly and back-breaking work I finally got it positioned below the drip in the back water feature. I'm pretty excited about seeing birds bathe in it in a few months. Some species prefer to bathe where the water drips down on them and not in the above basin so this should be great! That was pretty much the highlight of my day.

A first step

Today I came to the oasis to do some much needed work, which included dismantling the old water feature. First I dug up two of my pomegranate bushes that will be in the way of the new water feature.

Did a bunch of pruning from that snow storm damage. Tomorrow I'm going to relocate more of the rocks, and water some stuff. I'm really exhausted tonight.

When I took a a break late this afternoon, I photographed a couple of the birds hanging around. Here are a male and female Anna's Hummingbird.

The bees were terrible at the seed feeder, but better bees than bears. The bees shovel out the seed, which ends up on the ground where the birds get it. They empty the feeder way faster than birds do (but not as fast as bears).

Here's a Lark Bunting enjoying the seed on the ground.

Finally, near dark, I photographed the afterglow on the mountain as I called it a day.

Big news!

I'm excited to announce that CMO has won a conservation grant. Soon (I hope), the oasis will be home to a new viewing blind and water feature. Special thanks to all who made it happen, especially Mike Gray, who wrote up the proposal and will be overseeing the work, as well as helping with the work. And I'm grateful to all the wonderful Texas birders who chose this project.

https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/534582957/despite-pandemic-great-texas-birding-classic-saw-record-participation-in-2020

I hope it lives up to all our expectations and provides endless happy birding hours, and life birds, to birders who visit from near and far.

Here's the blind "before" photo. I'll keep you updated on the progress of the project with ample photos, so stay tuned. I hope work can begin in a couple of weeks.

Neighborhood bears

 I'm sure the bear that tore down my feeder about ten days ago is the same one that has been visiting neighbors. It's the huge one with a missing paw. This photo of it was taken this morning. Their feeder gets turned over and the seed dumped out but the feeder itself doesn't get damaged, per the neighbor.

These same neighbors also have visits from a small bear. This next photo was taken of it before New Year's Day.

I believe the bears are here to stay now that they're protected by law. So we have to learn to live with them.

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UPDATE: My son just called me that he was at the oasis this morning and had some very close encounters with a huge bear, but he didn't have a camera with him. He's going to go try to take some cell phone pics of it. He says it doesn't have a missing paw. He saw it very close range and is positive about the paws. It was his first bear encounter and it unnerved him. Which means there are at least three bears prowling the neighborhood, two of which are very large.

Big Bend films

 Remember in 2019 when they filmed the Lucifers and Elf Owls at the oasis? Well, that film is going to air on PBS on Feb 10, so mark you calendars, or set your TV to record it.

Screen shot of my mountain from the film

Also, National Geographic is going to film the Elf Owls at the oasis this spring and summer, so it portends to be an interesting year.

Catching up

 Day before yesterday Dale and I had a great birding trip to Lajitas and Cottonwood Campground (in Big Bend National Park). How bad can winter be when we can still enjoy birding! Except at the oasis. Nothing interesting there. At Cottonwood Campground we were surprised to find a Warbling Vireo. Not a great photo but lucky to get any.

Saw a Snow Goose  and Eared Grebe at Lajitas...

...and many other nice species. Then we stopped at the waste water treatment plant in Study Butte where we saw a Least Grebe. May or may not have been the same one I had at the oasis last fall.

Yesterday I went to the oasis to service feeders and check things over. All that snow Lee shoveled onto the roof, and none made it into the catchment tank. Such is life! I think when we get a big deluge of rain it'll work fine but when it melts slowly there are too many leaks in the gutter, or something. He's going to work on it, but we hardly ever get snow like that so it shouldn't normally be a problem. Still, would be nice to catch it. The one at the carport caught a couple of feet in its tank.

I did some pruning to where the paths are open and the rest doesn't bother me, so good there. I had done the worst stuff last time I was there. With the weight of the snow gone, things look pretty normal. Naturally, I wore myself out cleaning out a storage shed. Full of junk I won't ever use in my old age and Lee wouldn't know what to keep and what to toss. Discarded a very full pickup load. Couldn't even get it all in. Sort of an end of an era, but I'm very grateful that I can participate in the transition rather than dump it on Lee when I'm gone.

Then today, I got the urge to go to Jeff Davis County and get a couple of species I didn't have for my JD county list. My targets were Common Ground-Dove and Ruddy Duck. I dipped on the dove, but got the duck. As a consolation I got better photos of a Ruddy Ground-Dove at the state park there.

I might just hang around the house tomorrow, but no promises!

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UPDATE! OMG! No wonder I dipped on the Common Ground-Dove! That's because the person that reported it on ebird was mistaken. It was actually the Ruddy Ground-Dove that she saw. Which I saw also. I should have done my homework and looked at her report before going for it. But, on the bright side, I did get a better photo of the RGDO, so all was not lost.

Mother nature may be winning

 Today my younger son, Leonardo, and I went to assess the damage at the oasis in my older son's 4X4 pickup. 

Snake Road 

Oasis in sight

I was unprepared for the damage to the trees. Many of them were flattened by the weight of the snow and some smaller trees were snapped in half. Almost all lost limbs, large and small.

Most bushes were still prone under the weight of snow on them. Here Lee is trying to remove snow from the limbs of this Chisos Rosewood hoping the limbs would straighten out, but they didn't. I'll have to prune those blocking the walkways.

While he did some plumbing repairs at the house I gathered and pruned broken limbs. We also discovered that of the three rain catchment tanks at the house, only one was catching melting snow. We finally got the other two working but most of the snow on the roofs had already been lost. With his last energy he shoveled some snow onto the house roof so it would melt and fill the tank. That's an unforeseen advantage of having an earth-sheltered house. The roof is at ground level.