Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge…

One of the great things about wintering in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas is the abundance of wildlife refuges, state parks and nature centers. One park I will be spending a lot of time describing is the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge about a 40 minute drive from our park on South Padre Island along the southern Texas coastline.

Laguna Atascosa is the largest protected area of natural habitat left in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The refuge is 98,000 acres in size and is still actively seeking additional tracts to purchase for inclusion into the refuge. First established in 1946 to protect waterfowl and migratory birds it is now also focused on the preservation of an endangered cat, the ocelot.

Ocelots are endangered in the USA only because their habitat is endangered as they thrive in very dense thorny vegetation found in a only a few places in south Texas. Most of their habitat has been turned into farmland leaving the wildlife refuges as their only havens for existence in the USA.

Ocelots are opportunistic hunters and eat a range of animals including rodents, rabbits, young deer, birds, snakes, lizards, and fish. Why am I talking about ocelots so much? Well one of the reasons we are back in the Rio Grand Valley of Texas this year is because I agreed to be a volunteer for an old college classmate of mine who is now a professor at a Texas University studying ocelots.

My responsibilities include occasional trips back and forth to the refuge because I am helping to set live traps on the refuge in hopes of capturing ocelots for study and radio collaring. We have less than 25 traps set out over a large area since ocelots have a home range of several square miles. These traps are baited with live pigeons but fear not as the pigeon are safe in a cage of their own within the trap. They also have food and water provided as they sit in their cages to entice a predator.

We fully expected to catch many other species in the process however ocelots are the main goal. Bobcats are also being studied when/if they are caught and will be radio collared as well. The traps have been out for a couple of weeks off and on  dependent upon weather conditions.

What have we caught? We caught and released lots of raccoons, opossums and skunks as well as a wood rat who somehow encaptured himself. We also caught three bobcats so far and one ocelot. What I enjoy the most about this project besides the ability to see my first ocelot is watching the vets and scientists process the cats collecting as much data as possible before the cats wake up from their anesthesia.

Also fun is watching the cats wake up and leave their traps with their new radio collars. This project will last into March and we hope to catch several more ocelot's. I am also looking forward to following the tracking data these collared cats will provide the scientific community.

I am not at liberty to provide pictures from the actual project so I have instead included some photos of the refuge and from the internet. I will say that I have really enjoyed this opportunity!

NOTE: We are currently in South Padre Island TX until March 1st…

Birding the Laguna Madre Nature Trail TX

One thing we always enjoy is visiting the Laguna Madre Nature Trail at the South Padre Island Convention Center. Once in the parking lot, visitors are  greeted by a wall painting of whales and dolphins. Just around the corner of this building is the start of the Laguna Madre Nature Trail.

Unlike the South Padre Island Birding & Nature Center located next door, this adventure is FREE! It includes a 1500 ft. boardwalk spanning over both salt and freshwater wetlands. The boardwalk is adjacent to a Central Power and Light Company station.The company built the boardwalk as part of a mitigation project due to wetland destruction caused by the construction of underground power lines.

This boardwalk allows visitors to view four acres of marshland. Many coastal and migratory birds as well as some small alligators can be seen.. Sharon and I will walk this boardwalk multiple times a week in search of different species of birds. While views of the marsh are nice, another portion of the boardwalks slices through a Mangrove Swamp then ends at the Laguna Madre Bay.

Where the boardwalk ends is a great spot for seeing multitudes of birds especially during low tide. Found here are many birds associated with the salt water shorelines and flats as well as freshwater species since the freshwater ponds are discharging into the sea water here as well.

While the boardwalk isn’t very long we will often spend an hour or more just checking out the sights while taking photographs of our favorites. I’ll probably ask Sharon to pen a blog about this trail as well so she can share some of her favorite photos taken here.

NOTE: We are currently in South Padre Island TX until March 1st…