Falcon Lake State Park is on the edge of the Rio Grande Valley. It is still pretty desolate country but the state park is very nice. We took a bird walk, went to a campground pot luck dinner, walked the trails and best of all, one of the campground hosts told us about a nearby bird sanctuary call Salineno Preserve. This tiny preserve is operated by The Valley Land Fund and had been feeding birds there since the 1980’s so there are a lot of the most amazing bird we have seen so far including three types of Orioles - Altamira, Audubon’s and Hooded, Plain Chachalaca, Olive Sparrows and Bob White Quail.
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| Altamira, Audubon's, Hooded Orioles |
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| Plain Chuchalaca |
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| Bob White Quail |
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| Olive Sparrow |
We really liked it so much, and the volunteer staff were very knowledgable, we visited two days in a row. We have found that there are a LOT of very serious birders down here - been a lot of fun getting advice on other birding sites.
On February 1st, we moved into the Rio Grande Valley proper and our campground in Mission Texas for a week. The Rio Grande Valley is a very interesting place - along both sides of Interstate 2 one can find any of the national big box stores and restaurants you could want; going north or south of I-2 you find lots of RV resorts ranging from simple yards to magnificent resorts housing all the ‘winter Texans’ as they call themselves (There is even a newspaper showing the activities in these RV resorts so you can plan you week’s meals and social schedule); beyond these are acres upon acres of fertile farm land with everything from Onions to Citrus; culminating in the south with the river, boarder and new border wall.
Speaking of the wall, we are sad to report, the wall is very real with lots of big construction to build it. In a lot of cases, we have been told, the wall goes where it is most convenient (on the levee built to control the Rio Grande) and in some cases several miles from the border dividing people's property. It was suppose to go through the middle of two bird sanctuaries we visited but that has now been delayed for the time being. And it is a big ugly rusty wall.
The Valley has setup many birding areas and has marketed many of them as the World Birding Centers - seems like more of a marketing plan than reality. From Mission we visited many of these including Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park that was right down the road from our campground - we took a birding tour, tram tour, and rode our bike; Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge - we took a 4-hour birding tour seeing 76 bird species, a tram tour, and an organized bike tour around the refuge; the National Butterfly Center - nicely laid out area but didn’t see many butterflies; Quinta Mazatlan World Birding Center; Estero Llano Grande State Park -wonderful boardwalks and trails; Edinburg Scenic Wetlands - we saw 40 bird species; Old Hidalgo Pump House that pumped Rio Grande water to irrigate to the farms from 1909 to 1980 but few birds; Resaca De La Palma State Park - we took a tram tour of the park; Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge; and South Padre Island Nature and Birding Center - it has both fresh water and saltwater marshes with many birds.
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| Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge |
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| Quinta Mazatlan |
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| Estero Llana Grande State Park |
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| Hidalgo Pump House |
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| South Padre Island Nature and Birding Center |
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| Resaca de la Palma State Park |
All of our volunteer guides were very knowledgable and where to find different birds. We saw a lot of the same species but new ones for us are the Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, Clay Colored Thrush, Long Billed Curlews, Eastern Meadow Lark, the Common Pauraque - that nearly disappears as it it sleeps in the under brush. Can you see it?
Also many other wintering birds we have seen at home.
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| Long Billed Curlew |
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| Clay Colored Thrush |
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| Black Bellied Whistling Ducks |
February 8 found us on the road to South Padre Island and finally reaching the Gulf of Mexico. We stayed at Isla Blanca County Park. It is a huge park with almost 600 campsites and although it has very lovely beaches we didn’t like the crowds.
We visited many more wildlife and birding places and we went to the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville. It is a very nice zoo for a town this size with lots of unusual animals and reptiles.
We then visited and climbed to the top to the Port Isabel Lighthouse.
It was an unexpected treat seeing rescued sea turtles at the Sea Turtle Inc - some new rescues being rehabilitated to be released and older turtle with serious injuries that will stay here for educational purposes.
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| Rescued Green Sea Turtles eating Lettuce to simulate nature grass eating. |
On February 12th we moved north to Mustang Island State Park, across the bay from Corpus Christi. The campground is about a quarter of the mile from the gulf which has very nice sandy beaches. We are about 15 miles north of Padre Island National Seashore. It is the longest undeveloped barrier island in the world with 70 miles of shoreline and there are 60 miles of drivable beach in the park. We drove the first 5 miles which is all they recommend for people without 4 wheel drive.
They are beautiful beaches and people camp all along the beach.
We also went on a bird tour here and saw 34 different bird species including Sandhill Cranes, Snow Geese and many different types of shore birds.
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| Sand Hill Cranes |
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| Snow Geese |
We also found a great birding site, Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center, in Port Aransas, about 10 miles north of us that has a very nice boardwalk overlooking the marsh.
We saw lots of wading birds such as Roseated Spoon Bill, Dowitchers, Avocets, Black Backed Stilts, Blue Winged Teals, a Bittern, and 2 very large alligators.
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| Spoon Bills |
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| Dowitchers |
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| Avocets |
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| Black Backed Stilts |
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| Bittern |
We also walked out on the Port Aransas Jetty and saw a couple large ships coming into Corpus Christi harbor.
Another very interesting thing we did was visit the King Ranch a little ways south and east of Mustang Island. It is a huge 800,000 acre working ranch with 300,000 head of cattle and also lots of quarter horses. It was fun seeing all the colts and calves. We took a 1 1/2 hour history tour in the morning and in the afternoon took a 4 hour nature tour. The ranch was one of the first to practice nature conservation. We saw hundreds of deer, coyote, armadillo, alligators and 54 different species of birds. Our guide was great. We had such a good time and the ranch was so huge and amazing.
We also visited the South Texas Botanical Gardens and Nature Center which had nice nature trails, beautiful orchids and roses and lots of donated parrots and reptiles. We went to a parrot program and learned all about the birds and Mark even held one.
The weather has been warm, quite foggy ,and windy lately and rain is forecasted for tomorrow. We are saving some indoor activities that we want to do on rainy days.
On to Goose Island State Park next.
