Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge

Another day, another wildlife refuge.

After a 3-hour trip south from Corpus Christi, we located the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge along the banks of the Rio Grande. We were particularly interested in this site as it promised old growth trees along the Rio Grande — looking as it did before agriculture changed the area.

The approach to the refuge is through huge fields planted with cabbage, spinach, and other leafy cool weather greens. Quite impressive.

The refuge has numerous trails through the woods with lookouts to various lakes. Not an impressive number of birds, but numerous varieties of ducks and coots, some vultures, and lots of kiskadees — a lovely yellow fly catcher who is not shy about letting you know he is around. There are supposed to be ocelots and bobcats in the refuge which we did not see although there was plenty of scat on the trails left by some larger animal. Coyotes?

One observation: We stopped to shop for some groceries and were surprised to see the number of cars with Mexican license plates in the lot.

-- Janet (text) and David (photos)