Bird's Eye View - Estero Llano Grande State Park

We're still enjoying our son's visit to see us here in the Rio Grande Valley. On Blake's last day here, we took him back to the airport to catch his return flight. We often fly in and out of the airport in McAllen, but Blake found his best flight deal an hour's drive away in Harlingen, Texas. On the drive to the airport we stopped for delicious Delia's tamales, and then we all dropped in at the Estero Llano Grande state park.

We reserved the all-terrain wheel chair at the visitor center, and it proved to be a comfortable ride for Denisa's Mother to see the park as well. It was surprisingly easy to push this special chair all over the dirt trails, along the many ponds and lakes that make this park a great place to get a bird's eye view.

We found that four different Texas state parks have these all-terrain wheel chairs, and we used this one to make a three-mile loop around the park. The chairs are also made so that people can propel themselves along the trails, using the special hand pumping extensions.

We all had to try the wheel chair, and we were very impressed. Good job, Texas State Parks!

During all that hiking and pushing, Denisa was busy taking more bird's eye view pictures. She's a fan of the handsome ducks and water birds here at Estero Llano Grande State Park. 

She likes it that all the different kinds of ducks seem to be happy to share the same log for an afternoon nap.

She's said it before, but this is a picture of "getting your ducks in a row."

We met some serious birders that were overjoyed with the birds they were getting to see here at Estero Llano Grande State Park. They pointed out exciting finds like the black-crowned night heron.

They especially were excited to see the yellow-crowned night heron. As their name implies, these birds usually rest during the day, and then feed at night when there is less competition. The yellow-crowned night heron was listed as "endangered" in 1999, so it looks like we were very lucky to see several sleepy birds today.

The birders also pointed out this male anhinga with the interesting white plumage on his back.

If you're tired of all these bird's eye views, you'll be happy to know that this state park also has some scaly residents at alligator lake. The two resident gators were sunning on the shore this afternoon. The first was huge, and very obvious to find.

Eagle-eye Mark was the only one that spotted the second gator, with only the tip of its tail showing out of the brush.

But in the zoomed-in picture we could make out the entire body all the way to the gator's head hiding in the grass.

We don't know all the names of all the birds, but Denisa still likes taking pictures of these bird's eye views.

It was windy on Blake's last day in South Texas. Aside from this warm and windy day, he had picked a perfect weather week to visit us. While things were cold and icy back in Oklahoma, he was wearing shorts and enjoying the tropical temperatures and beautiful bougainvillea here in the tip of Texas.

The wind was blowing near the airport in Harlingen, when we stopped in for a picture with this famous statue. Denisa looks very small beside this real-sized replica of the Iwo Jima statue that can be found at the Arlington National Cemetery in Washington. 

That wind that is blowing the flag on the statue today is bringing us a change of weather that we aren't looking forward to. For now we'll reminisce on the warm weather and the bird's eye views at Estero Llano Grande State Park, and we'll save our cold weather story for another blog.