Days 17 & 18 - I Should Have Read The Reviews First

We basically took the day off on Tuesday. We'd overnighted at the Bird Island basin Campground and it blew quite hard overnight...and continued to do so for most of the day. We made a morning trip into Corpus Christi to do a bit of provisioning at the nearest H-E-B, then it was back to Bird Island Basin for the rest of the day.

The winds were still blowing hard out of the south, which kept the birds down and we spent most of the afternoon in Speedy reading and watching the hard-core or crazy (or both) windsurfers racing up and down the bay. With high winds and smooth waters, what more could the speed freaks want?

We took one windy walk along the shore in the afternoon and did manage to see a few shorebirds peeking along the water's edge. The highlight was a Long-billed Curlew.

Yesterday, we left Bird Island Basin on an overcast morning to do a bit of downtown birding. There is a small woods in the middle of Corpus Christi called Blucher Park. It was given to the city with the proviso that it remain wild for the birds. It is less than a city block in size and totally surrounded by businesses and homes. But it is very wooded with a couple of small well-kept clearings and has a small waterway running through it. It attracts many birds and many birders.

We knew we were off to a good start when, as we parked Speedy at the curb next to the park, a White-eyed Vireo landed on a side mirror. This was followed by two Inca Doves sitting on a wire above the van. We walked only about 30 yards when we came to a fruiting tree with a half-dozen birders looking up. One said this was the lucky tree...and it was. It was filled with birds. We had Orchard and Baltimore Orioles, Cardinals, Yellow-breasted Chat, Couch's Kingbird and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. A Golden-fronted Woodpecker landed on a pole near the tree. Looking through the park, we also found Great Kiskadee, Long-billed Thrasher, and the highlight and life bird of the day, a Chuck-will's Widow. We saw 28 species in a couple of hours in this little park.

After Blucher Park, we headed back towards Padre Island, stopping at a public park on the bay, the Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve. It looked like it would be quite birdy, with lots of low woods and the Oso Bay in front of the park. We had lunch in Speedy then did a stroll along the main trails out to the bay. It was surprisingly quiet, particularly after the morning. We only had a White-eyed Vireo, that only I saw, along with the usual Mockingbirds, Cardinals, Grackles and Doves as we walked the trail.

The flats of the bay were also pretty quiet, with only a few egrets, a couple of stilts and a single Greater Yellowlegs in view.

After that we were off to the local county park on Padre Island, Padre Balli Park. We  had made a reservation to stay there rather than going back to Bird Island Basin since they had showers and electricity and we were definitely in need of the former and the humidity made running our air conditioner a strong desire.

What we found was a run-down pot-holed parking lot with a collection of battered RVs that looked like they had been there forever. Right next to the current sites was a brand-new area of well separated grassy sites with concrete pads and new electrical and water systems...but it wasn't open yet...maybe tomorrow, maybe.

They assigned us a site at one end of the lot. Now this is a place that was less than half-full, but they put us in a line of closely spaced occupied sites. In fact, there was a pickup truck blocking the site assigned to us. So we pulled into the next one over, which was empty. As I was about to plug into the electric box, Ellen noticed that our neighbor, the one with the truck blocking our original site, had a line of skulls in the windows of his sagging old trailer. We moved. I went back to the office to ell them the site we did take, which they changed with no problem.

I noticed a red-headed bird in a pond next to the RV area on the way back to Speedy, so I picked up my binoculars to give it a look on my way to check out the showers. This little pond turned out to be some good birding and the only thing good about Padre Balli CP. We found four species of ducks including Fulvous Whistling-Ducks and a Redhead (the red duck I'd seen) as well as a flock of over 150 Cattle Egrets. Dowitchers, Ruddy Turnstones and Sanderlings were among the shorebirds. 20 species in all were seen in and around this tiny pond.

It was then off to take a look a the showers. I later read a review on the Allstays App that said, "The shower house should be condemned". Unfortunately, I read this later in the day—I should have read the reviews first. We were shocked! After recovering, we decided to leave. I went back to the office a third time and they did give us our money back. We would have left even if the new area was open, because it didn't include new toilets and showers.

Where to go? We decided to try a commercial park across the bridge back in Corpus Christi. There were several to choose from on the bay side of town and after looking at four others, we finally ended up at the Shady Grove Mobile Home and RV Park. They had fairly well separated sites, although the short-term sites were near the road and they had clean showers. We plugged in on out flat concrete pad, turned on the A/C and collapsed.

The Taqueria Alameda #1 was just down the block, so it was a take-out selection of tacos and an Ellen-made fresh salad for dinner. For the first time this trip we cranked up the TV antenna and caught an evening of PBS.