BIRDS, BUGS, BUTTERFLIES AND BORDER PATROL

May 5/10

Yesterday, we bicycled over to the Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park and rode around all the roads looking at the vegetation and birds.  The park has a world birding center with many exhibits, educational programs and tours.  

http://www.worldbirdingcenter.org/

We were there in late morning so there weren’t a lot of birds around but we did see a few including a road runner that flew up into a tree.  In the cartoons, the road runner always stays on the ground.

We have a wide variety of birds in the RV park including flickers, grackles and mockingbirds.  The mockingbirds are fascinating with their multiple songs and imitation of other birds.  They even sing through the night which we discovered our first night here.  There was a nighthawk nesting in a nearby tree during the day.  Here is a photo of it:

With the humid climate and low vegetation, there are plenty of crawling and flying bugs including mosquitoes.  They come out in the late afternoon and we’ve had to use insect repellent when playing pool at the outdoor billiard tables.  We also have fireflies that come out at dusk and they are fascinating.

This area also attracts butterflies and they are especially prolific in the fall.  We see them all over the RV park and they have butterfly garden areas to attract them.  These are ones we saw along the bike trail.

A few days ago, we heard a helicopter during the early morning hours and then for a couple of hours after sunrise flying slowly over the vegetated areas in the state park and between the maize and potatoes fields in this area.  It was the Border Patrol searching for illegal aliens from Mexico who cross the Rio Grande River at night.  Apparently, other RV’ers in this park have seen them climbing over the fence here and we’ve heard that there is violence in some of illegal border crossings.  Always something new for us to experience.