Monday March 5, 2012-Caddo Lake NWR

Today began with cold temperatures early but again it warmed up nicely during the day. It seems much colder here than most of the other places we've been. It is also very quiet here with hardly any traffic noise. The trains, now thats a different story! We are the railroad tracks here and the crossing where they engineers have to blow their horn. I have been amazed at the difference in how long the horns blow. Some kind of "toot" their horn as they pass but others seem to blow their horn all the way through town. Maybe it just seems louder because there is little other noise, and I realize that they must blow the horn when they make a road crossing, but man, they are LOUD!!!

Ron and I decided to finish the project that we started last week, that of striping a handicap parking space at the headquarters parking lot. We had already done the preparation work, so today we got the striping done, and I must say it looks pretty good.

I took our tools back down to the shop and put them away and had a little chat with Josh, the fireman for the refuge. Josh also is in charge of the vehicle fleet and the maintenance of the equipment here at the refuge. He was working around the shop today, so I used the leaf blower that I had out to blow out some of the dirt and sawdust around the shop. It now looks a lot better! Ron came by as I was finishing up and said that Linda had asked him to get some trash picked up at the Starr ranch so we agreed to meet him down there after lunch. I got Stella out of the house and she helped us get the area cleaned up. Remember when I said it was cold this morning? It sure warmed up after lunch!

The big event of the day, and really of our stay here at the refuge was this afternoon. Ron got a call from headquarters that a hawk had been injured and found by a couple driving by. They had brought it here and we needed to get it to a lady that was licensed and registered in the care of wild birds. We soon had the bird loaded up into a makeshift carrier and were on our way to Lindale, about an hour and a half away. We made the trip without incident, although when we made a pit stop, I checked on the bird and noticed that he hadn't moved at all, very disturbing for a wild bird. We made it to her house and she took the bird in. She found no broken bones but his right eye was swollen shut and she suggested that he had probably flown into the side of a vehicle. I later learned that when he was found, he had a snake in his mouth, so it was likely that this is exactly what had happened. At any rate, we got him into care and hopefully he will make a full recovery. Since hawks mate for life, we figured that she was waiting back on the nest saying "I wonder where he is, he said he was going out hunting and would bring something back for us to eat". I will give the lady a call later and find out how he is doing and will let you know.

So long.