Finding Refuge

First of all, let’s get this out of the way: We were able to shower this morning. Good news all around.

It’s our second day at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival in Harlingen, Texas and we had a wonderful day at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. This beautiful, expansive refuge is in nearby Los Fresnos and consists of 97,000 acres of thorn forests, freshwater wetlands, coastal prairies, mudflats and beaches. It’s the kind of wide open spectacularness that makes me want to burst out and sing, “Oh What A Beautiful Morning” with all the gusto Rogers and Hammerstein intended.

But we’re birding and there’s no bursting out in song else the bus full of REI-adorned birders chase me off the refuge. We walk slow, we speak in low tones, we politely get out of each other’s way to make sure everyone gets a good view and no one sings show tunes. 

Texas landscape is not what you think.

Lest you think that Texas is flat, dry and ugly you’re only right about one thing: the flat part. (I can say that because I just moved from Utah to Texas.) But dry and ugly? No. No it’s not. You’re thinking that Texas is that same Texas in the movie, Giant, where there’s nothing but miles and miles of dirt and dust and oil wells and James Dean who seemed to have taken a bath in black crude oil. That’s West Texas, guys. Not the Rio Grande Valley.

The dreamy sub-tropical breezes along the coast line mean you’ll find a combination of Yucca plants, palm trees and green fields. You’ll find humidity that steams up your glasses (and scopes and binoculars) and you realize that all this is the perfect habitat for Texas Specialties. To be a Texas Specialty, you’re a bird that hails from Mexico or further south, but your range is only going to be as north as this Rio Grande Valley area in Texas. That’s it. That’s all of the United States you’re going to see if you’re a Texas Specialty bird. But who cares? The Rio Grande Valley is just so pretty you don’t need to go any more north than this.

It’s very birdy

Upon your entrance, at the park headquarters and gift shop, there are well-tended paths leading to feeders where you can get good views of the Green Jay, Long-billed Thrasher, White-tipped Dove and a variety of songbirds. There’s even a photography blind that allows you close up shots without disturbing the birds.

Finding the Aplomado Falcon

Once you drive deep into the reserve you will enter wetlands-—both salt water and brackish water—that produce a multitude of shorebirds peppering the water. You can also find the two nesting platforms for the Aplomado Falcon, which has a very interesting story.  The falcons were extirpated from the U.S in the 1950s and the Perigrin Fund has been working on a re-introduction program since the 1980s to the point there is now a small sustainable population in the lower Rio Grande Valley, and it was moving to witness the three Aplomado Falcons we saw today, near and on their nest platform. We were also lucky enough to see the three very active as they chased away an American Kestrel and then a Cooper’s Hawk. Very exciting for all of us on this field trip today knowing that the Aplomado Falcons have found refuge in its literal sense at the refuge.

Here are some of my favorite shots from this field trip. List is below.

Altamira Oriole (Texas Specialty)

Green Jay (Texas Specialty)

Pair of Green Jays (Texas Specialty)

White-tipped Dove (Texas Specialty)

Long-billed Thrasher (Texas Specialty)

Great-tailed Grackle (Texas Grocery Store Specialty and most likely to poop all over your parked car.)

Today’s list (lifers in bold):

1. Black-bellied Whistling-Duck
2. Gadwall
3. American wigeon
4. Blue-winged Teal
5. Northern Pintail
6. Lesser Scaup
7. Ruddy Duck
8. Plain Chacalaca (heard) (Lifer for Lisa)
9. Northern Bobwhite
10. Wild Turkey
11. Double-crested Cormorant
12. American White Pelican
13. Brown Pelican
14. Great Blue Heron
15. Great Egret
16. Snowy Egret
17. Little Blue Heron
18. Tricolored Heron
19. Reddish Egret
20. Cattle Egret
21. White Ibis
22. Roseate Spoonbill
23. Black Vulture
24. Turkey Vulture
25. Osprey
26. White-tailed Kite
27. Northern Harrier
28. Cooper’s Hawk
29. Harris’s Hawk
30. White-tailed Hawk (this time got great looks at it)
31. American Coot
32. Sandhill Crane
33. Black-bellied Plover
34. Killdeer
35. Spotted Sandpiper
36. Greater Yellowlegs
37. Willet
38. Long-billed Curlew
39. Marbled Godwit
40. Ruddy Turnstone
41. Red Knot (Lifer for Lisa)
42. Dunlin (Lifer for Lisa)
43. Least sandpiper
44. Laughing Gull
45. Ring-billed Gull
46. Caspian Tern
47. Forster’s Tern
48. Rock Pigeon
49. Eurasian Collared-Dove
50. Mourning Dove
51. Inca Dove
52. White-tipped Dove
53. Greater Roadrunner
54. Golden-fronted Woodpecker
55. Ladder-backed Woodpecker
56. Crested Caracara
57. American Kestrel
58. Aplomado Falcon (Lifer for both Steve and Lisa!)
59. Green Parakeet (found later in the day in Harlingen) (Lifer for both Steve and Lisa!)
60. Red-crowned Parrot (found later in the day in Harlingen) (Lifer for both Steve and Lisa!)
61. Great Kiskadee
62. Tropical Kingbird
63. Couch’s Kingbird
64. Scissors-tailed Flycatcher
65. Loggerhead Shrike
66. Green Jay
67. Barn Swallow
68. House Wren
69. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
70. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
71. Curve-billed Thrasher
72. Long-billed Thrasher
73. Northern Mockingbird
74. European Startling
75. Orange0crowned Warbler (heard)
76. Common Yellowthroat (heard)
77. Yellow-Dumped Warbler (heard)
78. Olive Sparrow
79. Northern Cardinal
80. Pyrrhuloxia
81. Red-winged Blackbird
82. Eastern Meadowlark
83. Great-tailed Grackle
84. Altamira Oriole (lifer for Lisa)
85. House Sparrow