The Rio Grande Valley, Texas
It's a ribbon of life in a hot, dry land.
Along its aquatic course are pearls of great price — vestigial woodlands with names like the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park and the Santa Margarita Ranch. These verdant oases house birds with a distinctly Mexican flavor.
Mornings on the banks of the Rio Grande rank among the most exciting (and noisiest) experiences in a birding lifetime. Before dawn the pauraques begin their egocentric chant and shadow-colored plain chachalacas often add their raucous clamor before the last nightjar is silenced. White-tipped doves coo, green jays scold and Altamira orioles sing rings around the efforts of great kiskadees and brown-crested flycatchers.
Between 10 and 20 pairs of hook-billed kites make their homes along the river — all that are found in the United States.
Other specialties include clay-colored robins, tropical parulas, rose-throated becards and buff-bellied hummingbirds. But among questing birders, the riverine woodlands are most prized for the periodic rarities they proffer, including, in recent years, collared forest falcons and masked tityras. Just the rumor of one of these Mexican species is enough to induce seizures in serious birders.
Birds you might see
- Black-bellied whistling-duck
- White-tailed kite
- Plain chachalaca
- Golden-fronted woodpecker
- Ladder-backed woodpecker
- Green jay
- Altamira oriole
- Tropical parula
- Olive sparrow
- Buff-bellied hummingbird
Top 10 Birding Spots was compiled by Pete Dunne who is the director of the New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory and author of "Tales of a Low Rent Birder," "Feather Quest" and "Before the Echo."
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Photo: Laguna-Atascosa NWR, Rio Grande Valley, Texas. Photo © David Cree; Green jay. Photo © Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART.
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