Rio Grande Hike

This morning we went on a 2-hour narrated hike through the Bentsen State Park. It was offered as an event for walking off the Thanksgiving turkey. Since the park is the headquarters of the World Birding Center, the staff includes a number of people who know a lot about birds and other wildlife. Our group consisted a naturalist, a volunteer on the staff, and seven of us civilians. We traveled by park van into the park to a trail head and then struck out on the hike. Our first stop was a tower set up for observing hawks. We didn't see any hawks, but we did get a good look at a large number of Ibis and a lot of ducks.




Lee stops on the way up the hawk tower to try (unsuccessfully) to find some hawks.










We saw water fowl feeding in one of the area's resacas--oxbow lakes. There are a number of these in and around the park. They're left over from times when the Rio Grande changed its path.















Then we hiked the main part of the trail, a 1.8 mile loop that took us to the Rio Grande River and back. Along the way the naturalist gave us some interesting information about some unusual birds, local plants, some spiders, and the general terrain.




Wildlife habitat is an important element of the Rio Grande Valley.









The plants around the observation deck by the river are similar to what we saw throughout the state park.















We got to try out the sort of binoculars that are used by real birders.












One of the couples on the hike with us decided that this long-deserted, dilapidated house is their dream house. They like the idea of a house on the Mexican side of the river, with plenty of river frontage. All they have to do is rebuild the house.
















Tomorrow we'll go back to the state park for a narrated tram ride that will introduce us to other sights around the park.