Exploring the Rice Tract

9/1/18 

The Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR has many disjunct tracts throughout the Valley, and the Rice Tract is one of them – fairly unknown, and generally hard to get to!  Rice Tract Road, despite what the map says, is impassable around its middle section, so unless you have a major off-road vehicle and a sense of adventure to match, you pretty much have to stop when your driving discomfort meter goes off and take a walk!  The birdiest place along the route is the “Rice Tract Oasis”, a resaca right where the off ramp from I-69E and SR 100 connect; at the intersection you turn right over the railroad tracks, and you’re now on Rice Tract Road with the resaca on your left.  I got here a few minutes before dawn, and already the place was stuffed with Roseate Spoonbills and Cattle Egrets!  Black-necked Stilts had their almost-grown babies feeding about, and at least three Green Herons were stalking breakfast in the middle of the water.  A Ruddy Turnstone and some Least Sandpipers were the only other shorebirds I could pick out, but just before I left I heard some Least Terns calling.  

Roseate Spoonbills

With Cattle Egrets

Once the sun came up I continued on Rice Tract Road, stopping periodically, and along one nice little patch of thornscrub had several migrant flycatchers:  Eastern Wood Pewee, Least Flycatcher, and a robust-sounding Great Crested Flycatcher!  It’s not long after that where you reach the dicey part, but there was a nice area to pull over, and I took a ten-minute walk down the rutted road and into the woods.  I felt a little creepy back there, so maybe going with a buddy would be prudent, but decided that on future trips maybe just staying within eyesight of the car would be okay; in that area alone I had White-tipped Doves, an Olive Sparrow getting something from some discarded horse hay and “road apples”, a surprising “McCall’s” Screech Owl trilling, a pair of Chachalacas that flew across the road, and a young Altamira Oriole that came out to pishing!  I didn’t even notice the nest until I was walking back, nor had I noticed the little fresh water marsh by the side of the road, although no bird life was to be heard or seen (I did hear a Pied-billed Grebe while I was back there, so there’s water somewhere back there)!

A couple views of the dicey westbound part of Rice Tract Road

Young Altamira Oriole (also below)

Altamira Oriole nest

Hidden marsh near the "trailhead"

Heading back out I checked the oasis again, where Black, Forster’s, and Caspian Terns had joined the lineup!  More herons had arrived as well, including a pretty immature Tricolored and all white Little Blue, but the star was a handsome Green Kingfisher that posed on a stick!  I turned south on FM 1421 and stopped where the resaca crosses the road, scaring up a Spotted Sandpiper in addition to what I had already logged (I suspected there were some yellowlegs on the east side but with the glare you couldn’t tell).  

"Rice Tract Oasis"

Roseate Spoonbill

Immature Tricolored Heron

Green Kingfisher

The plan was to check out some of these other resacas, and while the next one next to Serenity Road was dry, the road itself looked interesting, so I poked along that, spotting several Groove-billed Anis in addition to the usual suspects.  This road dumped back out on Rice Tract, so I looped around once again, down to FM 1732, over to US 281, then north on FM 1577, hoping to access the west end of Rice Tract and also explore some other roads that were near resacas (according to the map).  I did stop at a couple of the resaca crossings, but they were pretty sparse bird-wise, and the residential streets contained everything from gorgeous mansions to pit bull-guarded shacks, but no access to the resacas.

I found the west end of Rice Tract Road, and there you have a view of a beautiful resaca that had tons of Neotropic Cormorants and a lone White Ibis!  Continuing past the residential area, there was a section of decent dirt road that went by some agricultural areas (thinking that they might be productive in winter), but before long I came to an area that, while not as dicey as the other end, it was rutted enough that I wasn’t prepared to take my car down it, so I parked and walked down another ten minutes.  Even though it was getting warm, there were some nice birds on this end:  Eastern Kingbirds joined the mobs of Barn Swallows flying overhead, and kicked up a couple of Common Ground Doves amongst all the Mournings.  A Cooper’s Hawk fled his perch, and a Black Vulture joined the Turkeys.  A Great Pondhawk was the only ode to settle down, and I tried my best to identify some of the plants along the way, but I’m afraid that Mesquite and Retama were the only ones I recognized… L

Neotropic Cormorant starting to show his breeding plumes!

Resaca on the west end of Rice Tract Road

The drivable portion of the dirt part

Eastern Kingbird

Northern Mockingbird

Dry wetland at my turnaround point

Two views of the "trail"

Great Pondhawk

From there I wanted to find Lago Road, and once I found it, there was a good-sized little lake there with Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and a sleepy Yellow-crowned Night Heron!  The rest of the road went into a field, I think, and the main road actually went north and turned into PFC Juan Garza Road, which took me back to the frontage road; a couple of stops along here ironically gave me a few whiz-by Ruby-throated Hummingbirds!  An attempt to find the east end of Lago Road failed, so I called it a day.  Even with what seemed like endless wandering, ended up with 70 species for the morning!  

Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Black-bellied Whistling Ducks (mate is hiding)

Bird list (generated from eBird):

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck  3

Plain Chachalaca  4
Pied-billed Grebe  1
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)  1
Eurasian Collared-Dove  4
Common Ground-Dove  2
White-tipped Dove  5
White-winged Dove  23
Mourning Dove  58
Groove-billed Ani  7
Ruby-throated Hummingbird  3
Black-necked Stilt  8
Killdeer  2
Ruddy Turnstone  1
Least Sandpiper  9
Spotted Sandpiper  1
Laughing Gull  3
Least Tern  1
Caspian Tern  1
Black Tern  3
Forster's Tern  1
Neotropic Cormorant  23
Great Blue Heron  1
Great Egret  4
Snowy Egret  1
Little Blue Heron  2
Tricolored Heron  1
Cattle Egret  30
Green Heron  4
Yellow-crowned Night-Heron  2
White Ibis  1
Roseate Spoonbill  7
Black Vulture  1
Turkey Vulture  4
Cooper's Hawk  1
Eastern Screech-Owl  1
Green Kingfisher  1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker  14
Ladder-backed Woodpecker  7
Eastern Wood-Pewee  3
Least Flycatcher  1
Great Crested Flycatcher  1
Brown-crested Flycatcher  4
Great Kiskadee  14
Tropical Kingbird  4
Couch's Kingbird  10
Eastern Kingbird  3
Loggerhead Shrike  2
White-eyed Vireo  6
Green Jay  11
Bank Swallow  1
Barn Swallow  81
Cave Swallow  3
Black-crested Titmouse  2
Verdin  2
Carolina Wren  14
Bewick's Wren  1
Curve-billed Thrasher  4
Long-billed Thrasher  4
Northern Mockingbird  19
Olive Sparrow  6
Orchard Oriole  3
Altamira Oriole  2
Red-winged Blackbird  3
Brown-headed Cowbird  2
Great-tailed Grackle  14
Yellow Warbler  1
Northern Cardinal  6
Dickcissel  4
House Sparrow  15