Hugh Ramsey Park

On Thursday, our birding group visited Hugh Ramsey Park in Harlingen. Skip and I had been calling it Arroyo Colorado. It had rained earlier in the morning but cleared up shortly before we got there. Everything was lush and green.

We first went to the feeding station at the SE corner of the parking lot. There were white-tipped doves and chachalacas at the feeder. The bird of the day for me was the buff-bellied hummingbird. It returned several times to the hummingbird feeder.

This green anole (anolis carolinensis) was sprawled out on a cactus. It had beautiful aquamarine eye rings.

There were snails on some cacti.

We even saw one right in the middle of the path feeding on something that looked gooey.

 This as-of-yet-identified spider was in the centre of a dewy web on a cactus.

Lantana

 We saw a couple of different types of spindly, red flowers. This is a scarlet sage salvia coccinea.

I learned that this is called coral bean (erythrina herbacea).

This was a very small type of blanket flower.

There were even some robust thistles.

and castor bean plants.

This delicate white flower is on a prickly stem. It is indeed called a prickly poppy.

One of the things I wanted to see before our return home was some cactus in bloom. These are getting ready to bust out. It was striking at how many buds were on them.

9 years ago, I took an excellent photo of a prickly pear cactus bloom which I used as a desktop photo for a long time. I have been trying to replicate it. This still isn't as good as the one from before but I did like that there was a bud just ready to bloom beside the flower.

Apparently here in Cameron County there is a species of prickly pear cactus that will bloom with up to four different colours on the one plant. All of the ones we saw at Hugh Ramsey were yellow blooms.

Skip found a leaf with a very small 'ladybug' type insect on it. However there aren't any spots on its wings. It is actually a 'red lady beetle'.

There weren't a lot of birds here but lots of interesting flora and other fauna. We'll definitely come here again.