Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

A perfect activity for us would be one that involved some form of exercise, outside on a beautiful day, experiencing something new, that is free.  We guess that would make a visit to Aransas National Wildlife Refuge a perfect activity.  Actually, after driving 30 miles to the entrance gate, we realized we had left our national park pass at the motor home, so the free part suddenly was in jeopardy.  We must be living a charmed life, because we found that it was one of the few free admission days at national parks across the country. Score!!  So we were soon out on the trails ready to identify shore birds that are beginning to look familiar to us.

We were glad to see a pair of these five-foot-tall whooping cranes in the distance on our first hike.

Besides birds, this refuge also hosts some American alligators.  We saw seven different alligators at different watering holes, but all of them were on the other side of the pond.

At the same pond with some of the gators was a large flock of ducks.  They obviously were more interested in eating (rather than being eaten).  Most of the ducks were tipped face down, eating on some delicious duck food in this pond.

We can't leave this part of Texas without trying to photograph the fire ants that seem to be everywhere.  We can now identify their dens, that look quite different from the ant dens in Oklahoma.  There is also a distinct difference in attitude with these fire ants.  Any disturbance to the den results in thousands of these tiny ants instantly swarming the intruder, stinging with a vengeance.  They are hard to photograph because they are so tiny, as compared with these tiny blades of grass that were on the den.

After driving through the park and hiking all the trails, we decided to ride our bikes on the one-way paved trail that circles the far side of the park.  Mark took this selfie of us while we rode through the less-visited back side of the refuge.

Besides getting some exercise from the 12-mile bike ride, our slower pace allowed us to see this group of wild pigs.  A little blurry in the waning light, you can still see the ribs on the largest pig. They are obviously reproducing well here, as there were many young pigs in the group.

Our last stop was the 400-foot observation tower that gave a bird's eye view of the bay behind us.  It was a fun and free day, and we got lots of good exercise at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge!

This is our last day of our stay at Goose Island state park, and we'll be heading down the road to more adventures tomorrow.