The morning emails brought me this…

	Thu 8AM	Thu 10AM	Thu 12PM	Thu 2PM
Sky	Rain	Rain	Rain	Cldy
Chance of Precip	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Slight
Temp (F)	51°	46°	41°	40°
Wind Chill (F)	N/A	39°	32°	30°

At this time it’s 57° and that’s down 2° since I woke up…And raining….lightly.

A couple of days ago I did a lunchtime run down to the local wildlife refuge. Brazoria NWR is located just a few miles south of here along the coast. I was interested in seeing if all of the fall rains had managed to fill the ponds after being disappointed for the past few years by the water levels. Well, the water levels were definitely up. Bird numbers were not as high as I would expect though…It could have been the time of day with most of the waterfowl off to the feeding fields.

There were a number of different species of  ducks and one decent sized gaggle of geese in the ponds. The weather was great for a day at the Refuge, cool and breezy with a clear blue sky. I spent a nice bit of time on the observation platform mainly watching the hawks play and hunt.

Sitting there with all of the other evidence of civilization being on the far horizons, listening to the birds chirping in the bush, the geese honking on the distant pond, the kkeeeeer of the hawks up above. Overall, the only sound of civilization that intruded was the sound of a helicopter passing overhead, probably on its way to resupply an offshore rig.

Trying to get my 200mm lens to stretch out and pull in the images I wanted are problematic at the distances around you in this refuge but here are a few shots I was able to capture…

Everyone stay warm and dry…It looks like winter is going to make it’s presence known over most of the US by the end of tomorrow…There is even a slight chance of snow (very slight) for SE Texas…again. And from the reports I’ve been seeing from my beloved Blue Ridges…My friends in the mountains have a few more days of snow piling up before the weekend ends…