A Walk in the Splendid Hugh Ramsey Nature Park

I walked the nearly two miles of trails at the 54-acre Hugh Ramsey Nature Park, a World Birding Center site, in Harlingen, Texas on a clear, cool Sunday morning in January 2024. The nature park is maintained by volunteers from Arroyo Colorado Audubon Society and the Rio Grande Valley Chapter of Texas Master Naturalists. The City of Harlingen removes trash, keeps trails clear, and provides effluent to the four ponds in the park.

Hugh Ramsey Nature Park is particularly important to Harlingen as its habitat of Tamaulipan Thornscrub and Texas Mesquite Brushland creates an oasis for local and migrating birds and other wildlife in an area in which an estimated 5% or less of native habitat remains. This percentage applies to the Lower Rio Grande Valley as a whole.

As a World Birding Center site where almost 300 species of birds have been observed, the park, built on a former landfill, is popular among locals as well as out of town participants in the annual Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.

Although I am not a birder per se, I always carry binoculars and a camera when I’m cycling or walking. I started walking from the parking area north on Retama Trail. I passed a volunteer removing the invasive Guinea Grass from beside the trail. I stopped at a blind, built by an Eagle Scout, overlooking the narrow Lily Pad Pond.

North of Lily Pad Pond I stopped at Kingfisher Pond and then walked west to Grebe Pond, which was very low. Great Kiskadees and Northern Cardinals called from their perches in trees beside the pond.

I followed the trail around Grebe Pond north toward Cypress Pond. I passed a blind with wall planks missing and graffiti inside. I found Cypress Pond very low as well, with White Ibises and Snowy Egrets feeding.

From Cypress Pond, Retama Trail took me south to Lower Indigo Trail where I walked north and stopped at Kingfisher Overlook, another blind with its wall planks missing and its wood bench scarred by vandals with knives. I continued to Arroyo Trail and followed it along the bank of the Arroyo Colorado, upstream, southwest. Herons, egrets and ducks flew overhead. A Red-shouldered Hawk perched on a snag. Northern Mockingbirds called and fed in the brush. Morning traffic sped along nearby Ed Carey Drive.

After a half mile, I came to the intersection of Ebony Loop on the south side of Hugh Ramsey Nature Park, an area consisting of named native plant gardens that the Rio Grande Valley Chapter of Texas Master Naturalists maintain. I followed it to another vandalized blind and past brush where warblers flitted about. I smelled javelinas and then saw a family of them feeding at one of the gardens near the parking area.

Hugh Ramsey Nature Park is a great place to walk, to sit, to view and to be away from the machinery of the city while still within the urban area. Despite the low water level in the ponds and the vandalized bird blinds, this nature park is well worth a visit.