The best part of living 1200 miles south of my family and spending Christmas in the still green area of Central Texas? Receiving packages!! I love, love, love receiving mail, especially packages. Usually my mailbox is just full of junk. Two presents have come my way, including a pair of binoculars. Thank you very much, wonderful parents. Blake and I went to Aquarena Center yesterday, where Spring lake and the source of the San Marcos River is located, to test them out. We spotted a green heron stalking slowly in the water before gobbling down a fish. Dozens of turtles perched on logs in the lake to soak up the December sun. The turtles piled on top of one another. Some had a green symbiosis of some sort of photosynthetic organism on their shells. Through the lenses of the binoculars, I spotted pied-billed grebes, double-crested cormorants, black vultures, a song sparrow, a plethora of Carolina chickadees, Northern mocking birds, and a lone yellow-bellied sapsucker. What a wonderful and very much appreciated gift. Someday when I finished with my degrees, I will add "ornithologist" to my job description.
I have spent some time this past week to explore the eco-region that I now inhabit. Blake and I ventured Northwest of Austin to the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge. The day trip was just fantastic. We have never seen anything like it before. We were both in awe at the landscape. I was fascinated by the trees growing out of the rocky hillsides. Very little soil here; the limestone reigns on the Edward's Plateau. Blake enjoyed maneuvering his 1987 BMW through the steep and winding roads carved into the hillsides. We hiked 5 miles through the bluffs. Not too many organisms out since we went in the late morning through mid-day, but the scenery was worth the hike. I would like to go back in the spring to search for two endangered songbirds, the black-capped vireo and the golden-cheeked warbler.
What an opportunity! Living in a unique eco-region complete with endemic, rare, and endangered species! AND, I am studying birds for my Master's thesis! What a dream! Just think, I found this school on a search that had no direction, just the goal of finding somewhere, anywhere that would accept a graduate student with a not so great GRE score. I found exactly what I had been searching for; a program with talented and genuine students, wonderful faculty, a lovely landscape, and hills that tone my calves.
It still feels like dream. When do I wake up?
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