Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge

                                   Wednesday 3/20/2013

Joe found an ad for a  cheap hair cut at a cosmetology school in town. He was in a real need for a hair cut so we headed to town.

Joe's hair cut cost $1.00. Now you know Joe was happy. I needed a hair cut also, but too afraid to trust high school students, so I opted for the $2.50 manicure.

From the look of the manicure, I was glad I didn't get a hair cut. When asked what color I wanted my nails done in, the girl said I had a choice from neon orange, neon green, sparkly silver, blue, blackish purple, or blackish burgundy. At this point, I wished I had my $2.50 back, but it was too late, so I went with the blue. Joe's hair cut was OK, just not as short as he likes it, but he figured at the $1.00 price tag, he could get another hair cut in 3 weeks or so.

Just another picture of the interstates that cross through Harlingen, making our GPS go crazy.

Sunday 3/24/2013

On this day we decided we needed to get out and get some exercise, so we drove to Alamo, Texas to go to a wildlife refuge.

Here is a picture showing you where the refuge is located. It is just south of McAllen along the USA and Mexican border. It is represented on the map as the small dark green dot. The drive was about 45 minutes from Harlingen.

It was a perfect day in the low 70's. We had a few days in the low 90's, so this weather was a welcome relief.

The Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge is open sunrise to sunset. The hours change with the sun. They also have trolley tours, but we missed the last one.

This refuge is a bird paradise, according to the sign. 

More than half of all birds species in the Untied States come to south Texas to nest, rest and feed.

In the visitors center, this is the birds that had been seen.

Outside of the visitor center was a feeding area, with the songs of Red-Winged Blackbirds everywhere.

Joe spotted an ant hill.

We have stayed too long in one place because ants have been coming into our Nest this last week. We put out a bait, and got rid of them, only to find a new colony coming in at a different spot. They had got into a bag of salted pumpkin seeds, we had gotten in Mexico. I had put a handful of seeds into my salad today, only to find out later the bag had ants in them. Joe said, "Oh well you got some extra protein". How gross! I keep feeling like ants are crawling in my throat.

We crossed the resaca to follow a trail.

Joe saw a sign about an eagle watch 1/4 mile down this service road, so we hiked down the road. Joe said there was a tower down the road, but after going at least 1/4 mile, and not seeing anything, we decided Joe read the sign wrong. We went back to the sign and read that there are eagle watches at certain times with a ranger. 

We found another trail on our map and came to this crossroads. At this point you can chose from three different trails. We chose the red trail, which was a 2 mile walk.

We have not had much exercise lately, except for walking Mallery, (which is not exercise at her speed), so we decided the  2 miles was plenty for us out shape couch potato's.

Balls of moss on this tree.

A bush blooming in yellow.

Finally we saw a bird! I think this is a Harris's Hawk.

In the brush we saw this birdie. This might be a Grey Vireo or maybe a female Black-capped Gnatcatcher. Hard to tell because the picture is not close enough.

At one of the ponds we found a Greater Yellowlegs

In another pond we found this Blue-winged Teal.

We came to the tower that Joe thought was down the service road.

The tower has a swing bridge between two of the towers.

Once back on ground,I stopped at a beautiful blooming bush.

As I took pictures of the bush,

Joe walked over to another , but taller tower.

We had spotted a Green Jay on the first tower, but couldn't get a picture of it because it kept flying from one bush to another.

Joe climbed the taller tower, as I talked to my oldest daughter Alisha, who had just called. This is the view Joe got from the tower.

View of one of the many ponds.

We continued on the trail.

The trail goes right up against the Rio Grande River at one spot.

Lions, and Tigers and Bears Oh My!

We looked for Ocelots, but they were probably sleeping during our walk.

There's one, in a poster sign. Got ya!

We finally came to Pintail Lakes

Glossy Ibis

Northern Shovelers

Black -bellied Whistling-Ducks

Around the lakes we saw these upper back blue birds with a white belly zooming everywhere. We never saw any stationary, so real hard to identify.

I looked in my bird book, but most birds with this coloring. Most were a gray blue, not a bright blue. Any ideas?

Cattle Egrets

Great Egret

Birder across the lake.

I don't know what duck this is.

Little Blue Heron

Black-necked Stilts

We saw this woodpecker, but couldn't photograph it because it wouldn't pose for us.

Joe's feet were starting to hurt and my hips were starting to ache, so we were glad to end the walk.

I have seen a lot of trees in Harlingen with these while flowers the last couple weeks.

Back at the visitor center I found some birds that would stand still long enough to get a good picture of them.

House Sparrow

The the visitor center feeders was busy with dinner gathering.

Chachalacas

A chachalacas scolding another chachalacas for trying  to eat at the feeder.

Red-winged Blackbird and a sparrow.