June 23, 2010

Yesterday, I received a note from Deborah Lane who informed me that she and Arielle would be the editors of my diary. Thank you very much Deborah Lane and Arielle!

The young Red-Shouldered Hawk was alone in the Pecan Grove at 6:30 a.m. The bird was on the picnic table as if it was waiting for its parents to come back. There was no voice of hawks and I thought that the parents were hunting.

When I through the bridge to the boardwalk, I saw a big puddle of water and some Algae on the boardwalk, then, another puddle and a third puddle near the exit on the boardwalk. Something happened on the boardwalk in the early morning; however, three Nutrias were busy munching the Algae as if nothing was happened on the boardwalk, and Green Herons were standing in shallow water patiently and waiting the fish to swim by.

Under the Cypress tree at near the Landing House, the mother Chinese Domestic goose was putting her head in its feathers and sleeping, and two other birds were busy eating the grasses, heading toward the site for the biological experiments. The two geese were further and further from the sleeping mother goose. It was my first case to see that one bird was left behind from the other two. I tried to see whether the mother goose was all right and I started walking slowly toward the mother goose. I thought that the other two geese were busy eating, but the offspring saw my move. At once, the young goose made a sharp warning quack. The mother goose brought up her head and stood at once and made a quack, and the mother goose slowly walked toward the other geese.

I hurried toward the Glass Bottom Boat dock and checked the other side of the lake. I was glad to see a Great Blue Heron walking on the concrete edge along the lake. The bird was looking into the water, and slowly toward the concrete steps, which are painted blue. The bird stopped there and looked into the water for a while. The blue steps go under the water, but not many fish or bird’s favorite crayfish could be found there. The Great Blue Heron does not dive like the Double-Crested Cormorants, either. I felt a little strange about the behavior of that bird, and I thought that it might be the offspring of the Great Blue Heron.

I went to see the Red-Shouldered Hawk at the Pecan Grove again. I was glad to see that one of the hawks was holding something with its legs, and pulling the meat with strong beaks at under the Pecan tree, and another hawk was stood beside of it. I thought that the parent bird brought the food for its young. I heard a voice of another hawk from behind the Texas Rivers Center. After the bird finished its breakfast, two hawks flew up on the picnic table as if they were full and relaxed.

Then, one of Red-Shouldered Hawks flew down to the ground. It was cute to watch the hawk as it found something moving on the ground. The bird was concentrating, observing it, and with one leg, the bird tried to step on it. I could see from the reaction of the hawk, the thing was still moving. The bird walked along with it for a couple steps and stepped on it again with one leg. The bird stepped on it three more times and then let it go. I thought it was the young hawk, and the bird was playing the game just like human children do.