Rio Grande Valley (RGV)

Rio Grande Valley (RGV) - 2021

Monday, November 15^th :

Since coming to visit, Marilou has been working so hard cleaning my house that I decided to plan a little get away. I read about the bird sanctuary at the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center in my Texas State Travel guide that I got from my Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine Prescription. It mentioned that the Monarch Butterflies congregate in that area on their way to Mexico, but we were probably too late to see that. Anyway I booked a guided tour at the center and planned to take Marilou to see the Shrine while we were in the area.

I left my volunteer work at Our Lady of the Rosary Learning Center a little early in order to bring Tina to the Master Trainer Kennel. Her stay there was cut short on my first attempt to travel while Oso was closed due to construction of their driveway. This was to be a one night stay so I figured I see how well she did on that short stay.

Once I dropped her off we packed our stuff in the car and started on a 3.5 hour drive to Pharr, TX to see the Shrine of Our Lady of San Juan De Valle. For the history of the shrine click here for their pdf description. We found the church rather easily and toured the grounds. The inside was decorated for Thanksgiving. I also showed Marilou the stations of the cross statues on the yard, but didn't take photos of them since I have them all documented on a much earlier trip. I made a copy of their "Our History" page that you can see here in pdf format.

We then made our way to the Comfort Inn and Suites just off Hwy 281. After checking in we searched for a place to eat. Most of the restaurants were closed so we ended up getting some sandwiches at a Subway and brought back to the room to eat.

Shrine of Our Lady of San Juan de Valle

Tuesday, November 16^th :

So we ate an early breakfast at the Comfort Inn and headed to the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center. We had an 8:30 reservation for a guided tour of the preserve. We got there just at 8:00 as they were opening for the public. We paid our entry fee and left my drivers license as a deposit for some very good binoculars they provided us as part of the tour. We were directed to the elevator to go to the top floor viewing deck to get and overall view of the facility. From there you could see the wet lands in the distance, an alligator preserve directly underneath us, and the sewage treatment plant that services South Padre Island and generates the fresh water for the fresh water part of the preserve. The preserve also includes salt water from the bay. This designs attracts more bird species since it has both types of water. Marilou proceeded to drop her cane into the alligator pen. We were able to get the botanist to go in there and retrieve it for her.

South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center and Alligator Sanctuary

We were still a little early for the guided tour, so we walked around the alligator area and found some turtles. The we returned to the center to join our tour. There were only 4 of us with a husband and wife tour team. They were very well informed and knew where to look for the various species.

South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center and Alligator Sanctuary

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When we started the tour, the first thing the guides did was point out some of the song birds in the bushes near the Viewing Tower, which was the start of the tour. The guides kept track of all the birds the pointed out to us during the tour, and instead of posting them in the order I saw them, I'll follow their list and try to post them in alphabetical order as they remembered them.

We followed the 3300 feet boardwalk and they stopped to point out what we were seeing, but in addition they knew what species were typical of the area and would search the cover to find them and point them out. I took a lot of photos of the birds but didn't try to capture the ones I see all the time in Corpus Christi. When we got back home, our tour guides sent us a list of all the birds that were seen that trip. Some were pretty far away so mostly viewed in the binoculars, others in the bushes or fleeing so not amenable to photographing. In addition the Green Backed Heron showed up at the alligator pen after the tour was over. You can see my pictures of the birds on the tour by VIEWING HERE. The ones on the list that I didn't photograph I scanned from my "Field Guide Birds of Texas" book.

There were 5 "Bird Blinds" along the boardwalk that were areas to stop and view the birds. There were posters that described the habitat and what birds frequent the area. In addition, along the boardwalk were signs that identified what birds frequent that area. So I decided to post the Identification Signs separately that you can VIEW HERE. I tried to put them in the order of the boardwalk, but won't promise none are out of order.

When I returned to the Visitor Center I noticed all the alligators were now out in the sun sunning themselves. Even the two huge alligators were out for display. In this batch of pictures I include one of the fish we saw as we started the tour.