Texas, United States of America - 27th March - 19th April 2025. Part 2

 31st March 

The next day we were due to visit a couple of state parks and look at a roost in the evening. It was getting hot before 9am and the rangers had closed some of the trails at Estero Llano Grande State Park due to flooding. We also discovered that Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge had been closed completely.

We decided to do the trails that we could and perhaps spend some time at the feeding station, watching from the shade of the main building.

Javelina

Hooded Oriole

Altamira Oriole

Long-billed Thrasher

Extensive flooding left some trails closed

Eastern Pondhawk

We saw several smaller Alligators that had left Alligator lake after the flooding

Sora Rail, one of 5 seen that day

Least Grebe with chicks

Great-tailed Grackle

Common Pauraque

A very limited view of Eastern (McColls) Screech-Owl

We stayed the whole day as our second park visit was not possible. In the evening we went to Oliveira Park, Brownsville to watch the parrots coming in to roost. We saw around 200 Red-crowned, a single Yellow-headed as well as Green Parrots.

1st April

Another drive on to Benston-Rio Grande State Park. Situated next to the wall separating the U.S. from Mexico there was a lot of guard presence and activity. We spent the day, walking various trains in the heat and were grateful for the trying for Elf Owl as darkness descended.

Mexican Olive

Chachalacas

Swainson's Hawk

Turkey

Verdin

The Elf Owls were not home. We waited until 9pm and were late to our hotel after the two hour drive. They weren't back until a week or so later, possibly ousted briefly by woodpeckers.

2nd April

Salineno Bird Preserve

This reserve had been closed and the gate locked. It wasn't clear whether this was to do with weather, funding (some reserves were not putting out food rather than spend funds that they had allocated for that purpose) or the proximity to the border. We met some birders that had already been spoken to by border guards before we arrived.

Mexico across the Rio Grande

We walked along the perimeter fence to the left and found that viewing into the preserve wasn't possible. By walking to the right we saw some Red-billed Pigeons on an island although it wasn't clear whether this was part of Texas or Mexico.

We failed to see the White-collared Seedeater at this site.

We'd noticed a community park on the way down to the site, stopped off and got some nice views of a pair of Vermillion Flycatchers. This little park gave us more birds that the outskirts of the preserve also including Purple Martin, Couches Kingbird, Killdeer, Western Kingbird, Cactus Wren and Loggerhead Shrike views.

Vermillion Flycatcher male

Harris Hawk