Busy Day

We had a busy day yesterday. We got going by 10am and headed up the Rio Grande Valley to Mercedes and the Premium Factory Outlet mall. After making a couple of purchases, we stopped in at a taqueria for lunch where we had excellent, authentic Mexican tacos  - small, thin corn tortillas topped with succulent barbecued meats, cilantro, onion, and queso fresco (a Mexican white cheese).

After lunch, we drove up to the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands (aka sewage ponds) to the World Birding Center there. It was an overcast day but we had a good look around.

A staff member told us the location of a winter wren. We heard it but didn't see it.

I saw this flower in several locations and googled "red Texas flower images" to learn it is called Turk's Cap.

I didn't figure out what this is called, however.

Across one of the ponds we saw several species of heron roosting and resting.  It's hard to see but there are several black-crowned night herons, great blues, white egrets, and a tricolor heron in that mass of greenery.

There were lots of coots.

Skip liked this sign which states: "Warning, Treated Effluent Water. Do Not Enter Or Drink This Water. No Swimming."

On the NE corner of the pond we saw several redheads and turtles snoozing - very close to where the 'effluence' comes out. Fortunately, we couldn't smell anything nasty.

Along another path we encountered this inca dove.

The interpretive centre is really nice. It has excellent washroom facilities, a comprehensive gift shop with many different birding and nature guides, this enormous great blue heron sculpture,

and beautiful mosaics on the floor.

Here's a better photo of the main visitor area.

At Costco we were able to find almost everything we wanted.  One thing we saw that we never see at our Costco back home was fire pit pigs ready for roasting at $3.79 per pound.