Astral Nomads

One man, one woman, one rabbit......traveling with the stars.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

A Day for Birds and Turtles

One of the nice things about South Padre Island is that there's not really a lot to do. We've been catching up on our reading and writing and mostly relaxing in the relative southern warmth. That being said, we usually try to get out and stretch our legs and find something to do. Today it was the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center, a modern and well-designed facility with observation decks and a surprisingly long network of bird-watching boardwalks that transversed a wide variety of coastal environments. I finally got to see a Roseate Spoonbill, which pretty much made my day. Such are the joys of the simple life. After that, we stopped in at Sea Turtle, Inc, a small organization that rescues and re-releases injured sea turtles. 

The Birding Center is modern and new, with a observation
deck on the fifth story and a lot of birding blinds scattered
amongst its extensive network of boardwalks.

The boardwalk spans a variety of habitats all the way to the bay. 









One thing that was a little weird was this mass of dead fish in
the shape of a fish. Very fractal, man.




Sup?



Looking at all this wildlife was making me hungry, so we headed over to this Cajun restaurant we had spotted earlier in the week named Daddy's. And no, we did not order turtle soup. The food was outstanding, though, and the place get's a big Astral Nomad's thumbs up.

I had Blackened Fish topped with Shrimp Creole. The
Creole sauce was spot on.

Astral Wendy went with the Blackened Fish
topped with Crawfish Etoufee. A pretty
nice roux going on with this dish.

5 comments:

  1. and generous portions too for hungry travellers.
    The bird pictures are lovely Wendilea.

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  2. ps I wonder if you'd be interested in listening to this BBC Radio 2 programme. I have a feeling, you just might?
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y6lvh

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  3. Wendy, I think NatGeo is going to be contacting you soon. The photos are spectacular, and yes, they're real.

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  4. Thanks Star! Yes the Astrals usually eat one hearty meal a day and then snack on fruit and cookies in the evening. I'll give the programming a go, as my interest is peaked!

    Debra, the turtle reminded me of Crush (Finding Nemo) and I could hear him telling me , "Focus dude!"

    Thanks Ellen. It would be my dream if they asked me to photograph the wildlife on Galapagos Island. I'd be there in a second!

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