Rio Grande Valley and Westward

February 7, 2026

We arrived at our campground in the Rio Grande Valley near Palmview, Texas on January 17. The Rio Grande Valley is used to describe anywhere from Brownsville, Texas to Rio Grande City, Texas. It spreads out along Interstate 2 for well over an hour. The highway is surrounded by box stores. As you get farther from the interstate you get subdivisions, lots of RV Parks, farm lands, warehouses for trucks arriving from Mexico and of course the Wall. We come for the birds and there are lots of them

Bentsen Rio Grande State Park was about 3 miles from our campground and we went there a lot. We hiked, biked and took the visitor tram. We saw lots of different birds including Plain Chachalacas, Hooded Orioles,  Altimara Orioles, Wild turkeys, Green Jays, Kiskadees, Northern Cardinals, Harris’s Hawk, and many more.

Hooded Orioles

Plain Chachalacas

Altimara Orioles

Wild turkeys

Green Jays

Kiskadee

Northern Cardinals

 Harris’s Hawk

The National Butterfly Center was about a mile farther. We go there primarily for the birds. They have a great feeder there. We saw an Audubon  Oriole, Bronze Cowbird (with a red eye), about 20 Cardinals at once, Olive Sparrow and Golden Fronted Woodpecker.  This is also quite a well known butterfly place and this was a very good year for butterflies. People were coming from all around the world. I never knew the Butterfly lovers keep life lists also.

Bronze Cowbird

Audubon  Oriole

Golden Fronted Woodpecker

Olive Sparrow

We also went twice to Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, walked about the refuge, and saw lots of American White Pelicans and orioles. We rode our bikes on the 7 mile loop around the refuge and went on their canopy walk. Another day we went on a guided 4 hour birding tour. We saw 61different bird species including lots of Green Kingfishers.

Green Kingfisher

White Pelican

Canopy Walk

Estero Llano Grande State Park was another fun place that we went where we saw Black Crowned Night Herons, Yellow Crowned Night Herons, a Common Pauraque, and Roseate Spoonbills. We saw 41 species here and also saw two alligators. 

Yellow Crowned Night Heron

Black Crowned Night Heron

Common Pauraque (Well Camoflauged)

Roseate Spoonbill

Another day we went to Edinburg Scenic Birding Area. We saw 41 species here also. The best was a female Crimson Collared Grosbeak which usually resides in N.E. Mexico and a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker.

Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

Our farthest excursion was to South Padre Island. We first went to the South Padre Island Birding Center, a very nice facility on the bay side of the island. We saw lots of birds including Black Bellied Whistling Ducks, a Marbled Godwit, Roseate Spoonbills and lots of herons and gulls. We also took a short walk on the beach. After lunch, we went to Sea Turtles, Inc., a very nice sea turtle rehabilitation center. In fact, they have the largest indoor turtle hospital in the U.S. They try to rehabilitate the turtles and return them to the ocean, but if they can’t rehabilitate them they live permanently at the facility. The center was quite concerned because freezing weather was in the forecast and turtles cannot regulate their body temperature and might need to be rescued and warmed up before returning them to the water. It was a very interesting day.

Roseate Spoonbills

Board Walk

Green Heron

Great Egret

Black Bellied Whistling Ducks

Snowy Egret

Recued Turtle

Sunday morning and Monday morning, the temperature got down below freezing, but we did not get any of the precipitation that they had farther north. It was still pretty cold for this area.

Tuesday, January 27, we moved west about 60 miles  and spent three nights at Falcon State Park on Falcon Lake on the Mexican border. The lake is very low. In fact there is a boat ramp that now goes to nowhere.

Falcon Lake Trail

Boat Launch to Nowhere...

Salineno Wildlife Preserve is one of the main reasons that we go to Falcon Lake. It is about 15 minutes from the state park and has a very nice bird feeding area and also a short trail along the Rio Grande River where you can also see birds. We saw both the Altimara  Oriole and the Audubon Oriole and lots of other birds. We went there twice. We also walked the trails around the state park, but did not see a lot of birds. I think because it was so dry.

Salineno Wildlife Preserve Bird Feeder

Rio Grande River Looking to Mexico

We spent two nights at Lake Casa Blanca State Park in Laredo, Texas. We drove around the park looking for birds and saw 24 species. We also took a hike. We drove a short ways to Texas A&M International University and looked for birds there also. We saw 12 bird species there including a Cactus Wren and lots of Pyrrhuloxia. There were also lots of deer and Javelinas grazing there way around campus.

Cactus Wren

Pyrrhuloxia

Tower at Texas A&M International University

Javelina

We left Laredo and continued west with just miles and miles of nothing in this part of Texas. We spent the night at Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Area. This park has very nice prehistoric pictographs. We arrived too late to take any of the tours to see them, but we saw them on a previous trip. We did visit the museum at the visitor and learned about the early inhabitants of the area, the coming of the Europeans and the building of the railroad in the area.

Maker of Peace Statue

Seminole River Canyon

Replica of Prehistoric Pictographs in the Visitors Center

We continue west to Davis Mountain State Park - more to come.