Our birding friend Ann, who instigated the North Pacific birding cruise, talks very enthusiastically about the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival in Texas, held each year in November. A few years ago, we tried to arrange flights from Palm Springs to Harlingen (south Texas) but that proved to be an exercise in frustration. So, this year, we decided to drive to Harlingen. Since driving the ‘Rig’ is slower (multi-axle vehicles have a lower speed limit) and requires more advance planning for overnight stays, we drove the Jeep and stayed in motels along the way.
Texas via Arizona and New Mexico
On October 31st, we set off in the sunshine for points east of Desert Hot Springs. One of our favourite birding places in Tucson, Arizona is the Sweetwater Wetlands Park. This wetlands is actually the sewage settlement ponds of the city but it's not as gross as it sounds. In the desert, with little surface freshwater, this acreage just off Interstate 5 highway, provides a quiet habitat for some of the most skittish fowl and we did find one new bird, a Mexican Duck.
Our next overnight stop was Las Cruces, New Mexico so we ventured out to Mesilla Valley Bosque Sate Park on a cool morning. We didn’t find many birds but saw signs of the local critters and stopped to look at the nearby cotton fields being harvested.
Big Bend National Park
The next 2 nights we stayed in Alpine, Texas (not a snowy mountain in sight) so we could access Big Bend National Park – a 90-minute drive across alluvial plains to the Rio Grande (Big River). We only had time to visit Panther Junction Visitor Center (visitor centers are always a good place to start for maps and advice), Chisos Basin and the old Rio Grande Village, where we could actually see the river.
As we left the park, we stopped at the Fossil Discovery Exhibit, an excellent display of the fossils found in the park since the 1940s. The designers did a super job of displaying the diversity of the animals and the geological timeline for the habitats reaching back 130 million years. The open-air buildings are not architecturally pleasing but are meant to blend into the arid landscape.
As we had traveled across the southern States, we noticed adornments at some of the small cemeteries along the way. Day of the Dead celebrations had recently occurred in the area. Día de los Muertos, originating in Mexico, is a festival remembering and celebrating the lives of departed loved ones.
These displays are from the Harlingen Arts & Heritage Museum at the Kick-Off reception for the festival. Unfortunately, we didn't stop at any of the cemeteries, enroute.
Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival
After 6 days of driving, we finally arrived in Harlingen (near Brownsville, TX) for the birding festival which offers 53 birding trips and seminars to choose from but only 5 days to see everything. The festival benefits greatly from the volunteers of a local RV park. These snow birds help with registration, morning transportation arrangements, information booth and the silent auction.
1) Our first outing was on a pontoon boat out of Port Isobel, on the Gulf of Mexico to the east. It was great to be on the water searching for familiar and brand-new birds. On one of the small islands in the bay, we spotted a Mangrove Warbler which is classified as a Yellow Warbler but sure looked different to us. On our way back to shore, a pod of local bottle-nosed dolphins came by for a visit and gave us a great show.
As we headed back to Harlingen from the coast, we stopped at an empty field to look for a Aplomado Falcon which was the marquee bird of the 2019 Festival. We did catch a glimpse of one and Jim got a shot of one the next day at the Exhibitors' Hall. This bird is being reintroduced to the area as it was extirpated (no longer found in Texas) but it still breeds further south in Mexico.
2) The next outing took us back east to South Padre Island. When we were first married, we attended a sales presentation in Victoria, on buying property on South Padre Island so we were curious about this “piece of paradise” as it was pitched to us back then. Sadly, we didn’t have the money to invest in US property so couldn’t really accept their offer to fly us to the island. Today, it looked like it would have actually been a good investment but isn’t hindsight always so clear?
For birds, the most productive spot was at the South Padre Island Birding, Nature Center and Alligator Sanctuary with it’s extensive boardwalks through the mangrove forest. We were the only ones to see and photograph a Least Bittern, usually a secretive bird.
3) As good as South Padre was, our next trip was outstanding with 116 species of birds seen in just a few hours. Estero Llano Grande State Park (wet place on the big plain in Spanish) is 230 acres of shallow ponds, a forested area, and a tall dyke which overlooks a linear lake. The diverse habitat makes for a diversity of birds. We saw so many new birds here that we returned to the park on our own after the festival finished. This park is one of 9 sites in the World Birding Center network along the Rio Grande - more evidence of the outstanding birding in this region of the USA.
4) On our only rainy day of the festival, we were scheduled for a boat ride on the Rio Grande. Thirty of us birders bundled into a tour bus for our trip to the boat, about 80 miles upriver from the Gulf of Mexico. Since the river is the international boundary, the Mexican side of the river was available for viewing. A border patrol vessel kept an eye on us as we slowly motored up river. For the nit-pickers: is a bird seen from the Texas side of the river but is sitting in Mexico, recorded as a USA/Texas bird or a Mexico bird?
The intermittent rain made us think of birding at home but the roof on the boat kept us dry. As the rain receded, the bus took us over to Anzalduas Park to look for Sprague’s Pipits (which we saw near Calgary but only as a speck in the far distance). We also lucked into seeing a Grey Hawk and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.
All of the field trips produced new birds for us and we were lucky to see and photograph all three of the birds featured on the Festival logo: the Green Jay, Kiskadee and Altamira Oriole.
Aransas National Wildlife Refuge
After the festival, we traveled north towards Corpus Christi to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge to see if we could find some Whooping Cranes who often winter in that area.
We left Harlingen as an Arctic low swept in from the north - windy, pouring rain and barely above freezing. There were actually seedy bits of rain on the windshield and the car was arockin' as we drove the freeway - brrrr.
When we reached the refuge, we bundled up to walk some of the trails and were lucky to find some cranes feeding with Snow Geese and ducks. The Whooping Cranes are sooo big!
Not a human soul about in the park but we did see a few wild species. Some shorebirds were so busy eating to keep warm that they didn't pay attention to us as we photographed from a few feet away on a boardwalk.
Taking the long way home
In true Susan Jardine tradition, we undertook a loop drive to return back to California via a northern route, instead of retracing our "steps".
Back in 2007/2008 during our ‘perimeter of the US’ trip, we chanced upon a magnificent subterranean cave near San Antonio. Since we were in the area again, we decided to revisit Natural Bridge Caverns and took the Discovery Tour (we probably took the Hidden Passages tour last time). An impressive place where you lose track of time.
One overnight stop in the middle of Texas was at a small place called Junction where Interstate 10 and Highways 83 and 377 cross each other. We visited South Llano River State Park before continuing northwest. We had heard about the park at the Harlington festival and were glad that we took the time to detour and watch the birds at the feeders, cared for by volunteers from the campground nearby. The feeders and bird blinds really help us get close to the birds.
Jim visited Lubbock, Texas for a museum conference 16 years ago so we picked that city as a destination on our return journey. On the way, we stopped for a lunch of dry ribs in Abilene, but it wasn't the prettiest town we’ve ever seen so continued along our way. Before going to the hotel in Lubbock, we had to see one of the top attractions of the city, Prairie Dog Town. A section of the city has been set aside since 1935 for the prairie dogs who are doing very well along with a few Burrowing Owls.
At Albuquerque, we originally planned to drive up to Sandia Peak, a 10,000 elevation for a spectacular view of the city. But, as it was getting late and there were very few birds around, we opted to continue on to Santa Fe where we had a reservation at Sage Inn.
Santa Fe
Santa Fe was definitely one of the highlights of our Texas trip. Most of the homes and commercial buildings are constructed to mimic pueblo structures. It reminded us a bit of Sedona in Arizona but the red-rock buttes weren't towering over the city.
On our first morning, we arose early and visited Randall Davey Audubon Center & Sanctuary. With water and bird feeders out, the garden was very busy with 4 subspecies of Oregon Juncos and a total of 21 species. Also found a Mule Deer that has learned to feed from a seed feeder, after all, they aren't labeled Birds Only.
The Sage Inn provided a shuttle service for the 15-minute trip to town center. A wonderful window shopping experience abounds around the central plaza in the artisan shops. On one side of the plaza, a number of Native American artists and craftsmen displayed their work. Jeannie found a pair of silver feather earrings she liked and was able to chat with the artisan who made them.
The quality of the crafts (jewelry, pottery, bronze sculptures, paintings, fabric art) is outstanding. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to wander the Canyon Road area which has over 80 galleries and studios in one-half mile. Definitely a place where you could leave a lot of your cash behind and take home some beautiful treasures.
Santa Fe is a 2-day drive from Desert Hot
Springs. With a short stop at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center near Albuquerque and then at Winslow, Arizona to see the “corner” from the Eagles’ song, we continued west toward the Grand Canyon area and stopped at a small town, Camp Verde. We had stayed at an RV park near here many years ago but this time we picked a new casino hotel (Cliff Castle) owned and operated by the Yavapai-Apache Nation. The hotel was in a lovely setting with well-appointed rooms.
Before we left the area, we drove over to a nearby National Park (we had bought a year-long pass at Big Bend). Unfortunately, the ‘buildings’ are not open to the public but you can imagine the inhabitants scanning the valley from their ‘perch’ – we have previously visited nearby Montezuma’s Well where there is evidence of a sophisticated irrigation system – a fascinating culture.
After 17 days, 35 new birds and over 6,000 km (3,700 miles), it was good to be back ‘home’ at the rig and back to our usual activities at Caliente Springs Resort in Desert Hot Springs, CA.
We have previously blogged about our time at Caliente Springs Resort (you can find that blog by using Ctrl-F and typing ‘Caliente’ to find the tags at the bottom of the page) or click here.