Hugh Ramsey Nature Park, Harlingen Texas

As you might have noticed, we love photographing birds! I really take pleasure in seeing and identifying a new bird that we have never seen before. So we were anxious to get out to a bird park to see what we could discover there.

The first place we visited is called Hugh Ramsey Nature Park and it's about 5 minutes from our campground. It's a small park with beautiful trails and a lot of different trees and vegetation with identity tags with a bit of information on most of them. The park is free to all and we can even take the dogs, which we do sometimes just for a change of scenery. The park goes along the Ayoro River on two sides and also has numerous ponds.

This sign is to alert us that the park also has other creatures roaming
like snakes, javelinas, coyotes, and bobcats. It would be too cool to see
any of those!

Whoever designed that park did a great job at providing the right habitat for different species and also for butterflies. It's also wheelchair accessible on some of the trails. There are washrooms close to the parking lot.

So this is where we saw our first Green Jay. I was so determined to see one! In fact, it was one of the reasons we came to Texas!

Most of the trails are wide and well graded making them wheelchair accessible. Sweet!

Our first Green Jay!

 You really have to keep looking around as you walk the trails as there might be a bird in plain view that you might miss if you're not scouting the trees. That's how I spotted Chachalacas. They were deep in the brush but I saw movement so looked more intensely to see these large birds hopping from branch to branch. I took some pictures but they are hard to see in there.

I knew that's what they were as I had seen them in my bird book while researching another bird. They hop onto branches without using their wings, like I have seen Toucan do. I really hope to see them again and get a better picture.

I could hear this bird call that sounded like a cry but I could never see it. Finally, this little bird came out from deep within a tree just long enough for me to catch a picture. Now I knew what was making that (by now annoying) sound. It was a Black-crested Titmouse!

Another bird I had never seen! By now I am in heaven! But it's not over. I catch a glimpse of colour, follow it to partially see an Altamira Oriole. They are strictly southern birds so no chance of ever seeing them in Canada where we get the Baltimore Oriole.

The butterflies are everywhere making us think we are at a butterfly conservatory. They are very active and flitter from flower to flower with frenetic energy, rarely staying still long enough to photograph.

These two were up to no good! Aiming for a connection!

On our way back to the parking lot, we heard then spotted several Great Kiskadees. They are so pretty and their call sounds like their name: kiskadee, kiskadee, kiskadee. They seem to abound in this park as on another visit we also saw several of them in a tree.

We love this park like many other people that seem to go there just to walk or eat their lunch. It is truly a small gem.

Oh! and one day, on our way to town, I spotted this raptor on top of a telephone pole. I was able to snap a picture before we started to move again and later on discovered that it was a Harris' Hawk. You never what you'll see on the side of the road!