One of my favorite places is about an hour north of me: Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge.
Hagerman used to be a small Texas town but was abandoned in the 1930s when Lake Texoma was built. (Fun fact: Texas only has one natural, non-man-made lake.) The city that used to be Hagerman was flooded when the Denison Dam was built. When Hagerman was still a town, it was a thriving railroad community that was bolstered by natural springs. The springs still exist in the refuge.
Although I've lived in this area most of my life, I didn't realize that the refuge was so awesome. Everyone "knows" that there's no nice scenery in Texas outside of Hill Country... and the pine forests in East Texas... and the Gulf Coast. Anyway, there's no nice scenery in North Central Texas (supposedly). Except that Hagerman Refuge is beautiful! And, it's a big migration spot for myriad birds. Even the most inexperienced birder (like me) will get to see some beautiful birds and do so pretty up-close.
In late April, we were still having nice cool weather around here so we took a trip up there one afternoon to see what was around. The flocks of snow geese that wintered over were gone, but the egrets and other shorebirds were still there.
Snowy Egret
Great Blue Heron
Coot
Various shorebirds
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