Friday 29 March 2013

Texas - Day 7

Our last day by the Rio Grande, to end our time there we headed over to Santa Anna National Wildlife Refuge, where we also started our visit to the area. Last time we visited the park in the evening and it was only a short visit, but now we wanted to get there in the morning and stay longer and allowing us to explore more.

Almost instantly we spotted a few dragonflies flying around and some small butterflies including an Antillean Saddlebag.


Antillean Saddlebag - Tramea insularis

The lakes on the park had nearly dried up, some now just a empty space of dried mud. Even though their wasn't as much water as there should have been due a 3 year drought in the are we were able to see Short-billed Dowitchers, Song Sparrows, Wild Hog and other animals.


Short-billed Dowitcher -  Limnodromus griseus


Peccary - Tayassuidae


Song Sparrows - Melospiza melodia


We walked over to the other side of the refuge as we had been tipped off that there were Great Horned Owls chicks sitting in a nest in a tree by the path. Once there we started looking for the owls and after amount 10 minutes of looking we stopped for a drink when Dad suddenly spotted them sitting in the nest just as we had been told they would be.


Great Horned Owls - Bubo virginianus

Once we finished photographing the owls we headed back to the car and started our journey to Port Aransas, after checking in to our hotel we headed out to see the local reserves so we will  know where to go tomorrow.


The Wildlife Center in Port Aransas




3 comments:

  1. Oliver, more nice photos. Your wild hog picture is actually a javelina (technically a peccary). Our wild hogs are actually domestic pigs that have become feral and are not native to the US but were brought here by early European settlers.

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    1. Thank You for your comments, I have changed the what I called a Wild Hog to a Peccary and added a note after the reference to the coypu saying its also known as a Nutria. As you can see in my last post I am now back in the UK sadly but will carry on the blog with the images I am taking here.

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  2. You have some very nice images, thanks for sharing

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