Enjoying Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park while we can!

We are a fan of Texas State Parks. We purchase an annual park pass every year, and enjoy staying in the campgrounds as we make our way through this very big state. While we stay in the Rio Grande Valley for two months, we like to make visits to the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park. This park also serves as headquarters to the World Bird Center.

It's just three miles away from Bentsen Grove Resort, where we are spending two months this winter. It's easy to ride our bikes to the park, or load them onto our car's bike rack and drive to the park. Once inside the park, it seems that we start seeing birds immediately.

They stay close to the areas where bird seed is refreshed every morning. Often our pictures will include the feeders where they are literally hanging out.

We aren't good at identifying birds, but we know the names of a few of the local favorites. These chicken-size birds are chachalacas.

We found out that is spanish slang for a babbler, or one that chatters all the time. So now we know that if we overhear one of our hispanic neighbors calling us a chachalaca, that probably is not a compliment. They are rather noisy birds! They like to hang around the feeders in groups, so they are easy to photograph.

We also can identify the great kiskadee, mainly from that bright yellow breast.

One of the most unusual birds that we see frequently is the green jay. With their lime green bodies and blue head, they are easy to spot even for inexperienced birders like us.

An easy pedal around all the paved loops is a four-mile bike ride. Cars aren't allowed in the park, so it's nice to ride on pavement without having to watch out for too many vehicles. We will see an occasional park ranger pickup or the park tram taking visitors on tours. But the most frequent vehicle will be a border patrol officer. We saw them in pickups, motorcycles, and on mountain bikes. They also have eyes in the sky, as this curious looking balloon is tethered to the ground. A zoomed-in photo gives a closer look at the surveillance balloon in the sky.

On another trip to the park, we watched as this helicopter hovered over the desolate area just north of the Rio Grande River. From our vantage point on the hawk tower, we could see the helicopter quite clearly.

Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park is located right on the border with Mexico. In fact, if the proposed border wall is built, most of this park will be south of that wall. Right after we left the visitor center, we crossed over the levee where the wall is supposed to be built. So at this point we would be on the wrong side of the wall.

Based on the Border Patrol presence in this area, this must be a popular place to cross the Rio Grande River into the United States. So we are enjoying this state park now, knowing that it could be closed to the public very soon.