Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge - bird watching and kayaking

 The first time we visited Hagerman wildlife refuge was in the heat of Summer of 2011. We decided then that we would go back soon to full appreciate this place, but we did  not go back until last Saturday, October 3rd, 2020!

The plan was to watch migratory birds and kayak in the refuge

We got to the refuge around 9:30am, the sky was clearing up and we went on to have a auto tour first to see migrating birds.

Wildlife Auto Tour

The tour start in front of the visitor center. The tour sign was easy to follow and it was a feast of sight.

The auto tour map was bit deceiving due to low water level in the mudflats and pond 

The large water area on the left hand side was a mere puddle, there were two birds stood in it, one snowy egret and one baby heron. The mush land was all green, there was no sign of autumn.

As we drove on we saw flock after flock of birds flying from west to east and then south and turned around. They were too far to be seen clearly, we were very excited nevertheless.

Then we saw two large groups of white birds in the shallow water. They turned out to white pelicans. If you look carefully there were 4 Canadian geese, super minority in the sea of pelicans. 

Turning onto a pad, aka, the nodding donkey pad for oil production, we witnessed that the movement of the pelican flocks. They would stay in pond for some time, then they would take off flying around a bit and then landed in another pond. Hundreds of birds taking off one group after another, the view was magnificent. How could I imagine that I could see this sight in North Texas. We have a wildlife paradise right in our "backyard".

This video recorded the continuous landing of white pelicans

There are water fowls at the refuge, though in much smaller number, they include egrets and herons 

Looking carefully you will be able to see that there were nodding donkeys at the other side of the shore

It was a beautiful day that Saturday. We thoroughly enjoyed the views and scenes

Kayaking at the Refuge

After the visual feast we went to L pad road to launch our kayak Emma.

inflating Emma

The launch spot is next to a working nodding donkey and pretty far away from the pelicans

We did occasionally see them flying over our head

Our original plan was to paddle further north following the red line, but the water was too shallow beyond the end of red line to paddle. We had to turn around following the yellow line to paddle upstream of big mineral creek. The water was pretty deep, many places we checked it was more 5 feet deep. But there were debris, fallen trees in the creek. Some actually below the water surface.

In a side branch of the river along the red line, we witnessed blue heron catching its prey

          

shortly after the blue heron's catch, a grand egret landed by the heron's side

The cyan and yellow overlap section of our route is the upstream of big mineral creek, the water there is very deep, and trees lined along the banks

The paddling was ok, in fact a little difficult from time to time, due strong wind, and the fact 

we did not install fin for fear of stuck in shallow spots. 

The creek was very quiet. We saw a water snake on the shore, and heard birds chirping occasionally but not much anything else. We paddled gently and played music from a cell phone on the way back to the launching spot following the cyan route.