Mustang Island State Park and Kingsville

Caspian Terns on Mustang Island State Park Beach

A few weeks back we scheduled a birding ‘date’ in the Kingsville area with friends Thea, Jess, Thea’s son Will and his girlfriend Holly. The nearest state park was Mustang Island, another place we had always wanted to stay, so we headed for Mustang Island to camp for the weekend and meet the gang in Kingsville on Sunday for our big birding day.

Mustang Island State Park allows primitive camping right out on the beach or there are campsites with water and electricity just behind the dunes very near the beach.  Being so close to the ocean, the campsites are out in the open, close together and exposed to the elements.  But the weather was perfect, not too windy and so our stay was lovely.  It was so relaxing to take long walks on the beach and to be gently whispered to sleep by the sound of the waves.

 

Terns in Flight

 

Early Sunday morning we drove about 35 miles to Kingsville.  Thea had worked hard to plan a fantastic day for us all.  First we had breakfast in Kingsville, then hopped in the cars for a day long adventure.  Will knew the area well as he graduated from Texas A&M Kingsville with a degree in Wildlife Management.  So, he was a natural for our tour and bird guide.  We visited 4 main habitat areas – woodland, prairie, lake and sea shore and we were rewarded with lots of great bird sightings from green jays to hawks to the white morph of the reddish egret.

After birding all morning we had a nice stop for lunch at a seafood place near the small town of Riviera.  Riviera, located on Baffin Bay, has an interesting history.  The land surrounding the bay was purchased from the King Ranch Family by a German immigrant.  He planned on turning the area into the ‘Texas Rivera.’  Several nice hotels, restaurants and other tourist facilities were built and tourists started to come.  But then World War I broke out and everything changed.  Sentiments towards Germans were not exactly friendly anymore and the government imposed many restrictions on German businesses, so the resort suffered economically and eventually failed.  Today a few marinas and restaurants are all that is left of the ‘Texas Riviera’ on Baffin Bay.

 

Great Blue Heron 'waterskiing...'

 

The afternoon consisted of more birding and exploring the Kingsville area.  We capped it all off with a great BBQ dinner and lots of talk.  Needless to say, it was late when we got back to our campsite on Mustang Island.  Maya insisted upon a moonlight walk on the beach. She had spent a good deal of the day in the car or waiting on us while we scanned sky and shore for birds.  Maya doesn’t quite understand how we can spend so much time just standing in one place looking.  Smelling is so much more rewarding.