As soon as we checked out of the motel, we headed southeast towards Brownsville and a nature reserve my sister had heard about: Resaca de la Palma State Park. We learned from the front desk staff that the park opened a little over two years ago, so it’s fairly new. Here’s a link to a press release which describes the 1200 acre park as the largest of the nine sites which comprise the World Birding Center. It includes “Tamaulipan thornscrub, ebony-anacua forest, sugar hackberry woodlands, revegetated grasslands and the resaca wetlands.”
Hearing that my sister was interested in the park’s birds, one of the naturalists offered us a two-hour personalized guided tour. He drove us on an electric tram on a 3 mile paved road loop through different habitats, pointing out the various species of birds that were flitting about. I really enjoyed being out in the sunshine and immersing myself in a different kind of landscape, a far cry from the evergreen and deciduous forests of Massachusetts.
I didn’t take any bird photos at this reserve and won’t mention the species we saw (my sister kept the list), so you’ll have to take my word for it — there’s awesome stuff here.
Late in the afternoon, we continued east toward Port Isabel and then South Padre Island. The Island really is an island, connected to the mainland by the Queen Isabella Causeway bridge. I knew a bit about the area in terms of its natural history, but apparently South Padre is also a well-known resort community, popular with the Spring Break crowd as well as with “Winter Texans.” We were assigned a two-bedroom suite on the ninth floor of our building. Here is a view of the beach from our balcony at the Royale Beach and Tennis Club. The vehicle on the beach is adding dredged sand to it.
Immediately after we checked in, we decided to explore the island northward on Padre Boulevard, which is also Texas Route 100. Mere minutes from the hotels and bars and restaurants, we’re suddenly in a wilderness. Here the road ends!
South Padre is a barrier island, 113 miles long and up to 3 miles wide. Laguna Madre, part of the Intercoastal Waterway, separates it from the mainland. The sand dunes are striking:
If the weather holds, which I’m sure it won’t, I think we’ll have a great week.