Meet Father Jones and I can affirm that he doesn't look at all like my brother-in-law Ralph Jones. He is originally from the Pacific Northwest.
Stella Maris Chapel was built of shellcrete, a shell-aggregate masonry, in the town of Lamar, about one mile away, in 1858 and moved to this site in 1986.
A rather simple sanctuary with nice stenciling at the ceiling.
Goose Island State Park, as I mentioned, is a an anglers' favorite and a birder's paradise. But there are two specific attractions that everyone who comes here tries to see - the Big Tree and Whooping Cranes. This afternoon we set off to see the Big Tree that is two miles from the State Park, the road to which passes a large field where Whooping Cranes have been seen.
Walking out of the Park we passed a fish cleaning station where we met "Fence"Bill (called Fence because of an ornate fence that he built at his home about two miles away). He is cleaning what he called "red" fish that he will grill with garlic and lemon. There are only three fillets because he fed the fourth to the brown pelicans that inhabit the dock when fish are being cleaned.
There was a large group of what Bill called "snow" birds (white pelicans) which he doesn't like because they come from Florida and he won't feed them.
Bill claims that these Brown Pelicans have never caught a fish because they depend on the hand-outs.
This Great Blue Heron was just twenty feet down sea wall. These Herons seem to be solitary birds, every one that we have seen has been a single.
The Big Tree is a coastal live oak and is one of the largest of its kind. Notice the "crutches" to the left and right holding up the wide-reaching limbs. It was named the Texas State Champion Live Oak and is 1,000 years old. Adjacent to the tree there was a time-line that mentioned some events that have happened near here during the life of this tree. "When the tree was about 850 years old, less than one mile away the town of Lamar was being burned by Union troops during a Civil War battle."
After viewing the Big Tree we were on the look-out for the Whooping Cranes.
First we saw a flock of Turkey Vultures.
There they are in a field across the road from Aransas Bay.
At one point three of the five cranes took off and flew over our heads.
Here they come back and as they neared the other two in the field these Whooping Cranes began "whooping".
These are Sand Hill Cranes that were in the same field as the Whooping Cranes.
Along the road on our walk back to the Park we noticed this clever advertising ploy.
This is the view from the front of the Airstream. You can see how shallow the water is - these are two anglers in waders.
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