November 11 (yesterday)

We spent the last two nights in Tenkiller State Park. This is in the heart of Cherokee Nation right near the Trail of Tears, and also right near the Cherokee Nation Casinos. We didn’t go there for any of these perfectly good reasons, we were there because it’s the nearest campground to Sequoyah NWR, the State Park only a few miles away at a smaller lake.

After a leisurely breakfast yesterday Henk emailed everybody at work that he was taking a “flex day”. Then he took me to the Nature Center and introduced me to the nature guide lady and her cuddle dove. He met them already when he went to register us. The cuddle dove is some South American species or other, lovely, but invasive. She got him from a friend when he was a baby, and now he – the dove – thinks she – the  guide lady – is his bride. So he coos over her, snuggles his beak against her cheek, and preens her guide lady shirt. It’s hilarious and very cute. While we were there we checked out the various rattle snakes we might encounter, but it’s too cool now, in November, besides, we should stay on the paved walk so if there’s one sunning itself we’ll see it from plenty far away.

The refuge is a river delta, where the Arkansas river and the Canadian River (Canada River?) meet. There’s a dam further down, so it’s a large lake area, with lots of sandbars and islands at the upper end. Migrating and wintering  waterfowl apparently love it, and so do fishermen and hunters. I had my red windbreaker on at first, but Henk found out there’s no hunting this weekend, and the sun was pretty warm. So the windbreaker came of quickly – I so had too many layers on underneath. I guess my mind was suffering from NH weather expectations…  

It was sunny and clear, but unfortunately also quite windy. Therefore the ducks and geese were all on the other side of the lake, leeward of the little islands, and too far away to tell apart. We did recognize the white pelicans, herons, and cormorants. The new species for our bird list: hooded mergansers, in a piece of an old closed-off river arm that we saw from the car when we drove the auto tour route. Gorgeous! The highlight of the day: on one of the two trails we sat on a bench beside a quiet pond-like piece of the lake, and after a few minutes Henk spotted a – beaver? – no – otter! We watched it hunt,coming up and diving right back down into the duckweed, until it finally swam to the far shore with a large fish. Which got eaten with gusto. Henk got a picture, I think when the otter was just finished with the fish, I’ll post it tomorrow after downloading to my laptop. We watched for at least fifteen minutes, sat in the sun, listened to the silence… life is good.

After a very late lunch, or no, it was a very early dinner, we walked down to Lake Tenkiller’s edge at the State Park. We watched the sun set over the hills. The wind had settled somewhat but still no birds on our side of the lake. Maybe a few loons in the distance, otherwise only vultures and gulls. Could have been black vultures and terns, couldn’t tell. But a lovely end to the day. Back in the RV we started yawning really early. I held out a bit longer than Henk, but was in bed by 9:15. This explains why we were up so bright and early this morning!

The plan for today: follow rte 40 from OK to TX, in Amarillo go a bit south and camp in Palo Duro Canyon. Supposedly this is as beautiful as the Grand Canyon. The pictures on the internet are promising. We shall see, we should be there around 3:30.