Pat Bean's blog

                                                                                                           

San Bernal National Wildlife Refuge: Invitation to commune with Mother Nature ... Photos by Pat Bean

Reflections

Bone-chilling 25-degree temperature, which Texas’ Gulf Coast wind and humidity dropped to a real 12 degrees, had been keeping me confined to my tiny RV for days. So it was with a delirious sense of freedom that today’s 50 degrees of warmth found me at San Bernard National Wildlife Refuge. I had come with my son, Lewis, my daughter-in-law, Karen, and my grandson, Scott, for a few hours of birding.

We had barely arrived before spying a small warbler at the entrance to Bobcat Woods. I got excited when I thought it might be a Bell’s vireo, a bird I didn’t yet have on my life list. But it was a white-eyed vireo. The grayish head and yellow markings around the eye, like spectacles, confirmed the identification.

Shrugging off my disappointment, I gave myself to the joy of watching THIS bird. It stayed around long enough that we abandoned it before it abandoned us. I was the last to leave its presence. When I’m birding with a group, I usually distance myself from the others, either going ahead because I want a chance to see a bird before it’s startled away, or straggling behind because I need time alone with Mother Nature.

I was the straggler today.

Besides the birds – over 50 species in three hours time – I found myself marveling at the twisted limbs of live oak trees whose branches were often wider than their trunks, the delicious green of palms and short winter grasses that added color to the marsh’s seasonal grayness, reflective landscapes and clouds in pools of water that lined the boardwalk, and dripping screens of mysterious moss.

While the others made their way past the boardwalk to the reservoir, I stopped to watch butter butts (yellow-rumped warblers) play at the edge of a stream and then to study and identify a winter wren, which closely resembles a house wren. When I looked up, I could see my family waving at me to hurry and catch up.

I did, as fast as I could. But the Bell’s vireo they had been watching was no longer in sight. Of course I was disappointed. Even so, I wouldn’t have wanted to miss a moment of the time I spent in companionship with the refuge. It’s comforting mood this day had chased winter from my soul.

 Besides, said the Pollyanna who lives within me, a Bell’s vireo is still out there and eagerly waiting to make my acquaintance.