I expected my birthday trip to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge to be a little bit of a bust since mid-July in Texas means temperatures in the upper-90s/low-100s. Typically, the flora is browning (if not already dead) and the weather is generally oppressive. However, the refuge was flooding some of the fields while we were there and there were birds all over the place!
I'm not sure what makes them decide to flood areas but the plume of water was pretty impressive:
Typically, the birds in the refuge are spread out. There usually aren't groupings of more than one type of bird. (With the exception of the Canada geese because they do what they want). In the area that was flooding, though, we saw snowy egret, cattle egret, great blue heron, little blue heron, mallards, Canada geese, red-wing blackbirds, and more:
Maybe it was because of the flooding areas, but there were plenty of birds in other parts of the refuge, too:
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret with Canada Geese
Cattle Egret
Neotropic Cormorant
Eastern Pondhawk(?)
It's not a bird, obviously, but it was absolutely gorgeous. I'm not 100% sure this is an Eastern Podhawk, but it looks similar to pictures I've seen of them.
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