See also the photo essay for the Valley Nature Center on David and Jan Dauphin's site.
Approximate Length: All the intertwining trails add up to about a mile.
Approximate Birding Time: 1.5 hours
Facilities: There are restrooms inside the visitor's center.
Fee Area.
Directions: Take US 83 east to Weslaco, where you'll take the Westgate exit. Follow the frontage road to Westgate, where you'll take a right. Go left on Business 83, then right on Border, which is the next light. The center is on the left, in Gibson Park.
The sign on Border Avenue advertises the Valley Nature Center as a "secret garden" in the heart of the city, and it certainly lives up to that claim! This is a delightful little six-acre park with revegetated Tamaulipan thorn forest (the area was once a vacant lot) that attracts many of the Valley specialties, as well as the occasional rarity (its latest claim to fame was the Valley's first Fox Sparrow in February of 2009). Before you enter the visitor's center you can pick up species more accustomed to urbanized habitats, such as Red-crowned Parrots and Green Parakeets at dawn and dusk, along with the ubiquitous Great-tailed Grackles and Starlings and the occasional Eurasian Collared Dove, but the trees in Gibson Park can sometimes hold warblers during migration.
While House Sparrows are sure to greet you the minute you leave the back door of the center (if you aren't distracted for awhile in their wonderful educational area and gift shop), you soon encounter common species such as Plain Chachalaca, White-tipped, Inca, and Mourning Doves (joined by White-winged in summer), Great Kiskadee, Carolina Wren, White-eyed Vireo, Buff-bellied Hummingbird, White-eyed Vireo, and Golden-fronted Woodpecker year-round; Orange-crowned Warblers, House Wrens, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and Ruby-crowned Kinglets in winter (the warblers especially like the butterfly brew); Brown-crested Flycatchers in summer, and any number of warblers and flycatchers during migration. Present but easier to miss are Long-billed and Curve-billed Thrashers, and Clay-colored Thrushes. Yellow-crowned Night Herons nest here (surprisingly also easy to miss unless you know where their nests are)!
I would usually take the outer loop first and then hit the central trails, sitting for five at selected benches. Turning right at your first opportunity takes you past the nursery, and at the end of that trail is a rocky pool where my life Guava Skipper landed on my walking stick! Once there was a family of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks in here as well (they have nested in the duck box near the "bog"). The large bird-feeding area is an easy place to relax (in very comfortable chairs) and let the birds come to you, but there's one particular feeding area near the intersection of the Brushland and Cactus Trails that tends to include more skulky birds (this bench is easy to spot as it has a "Please do not enter" sign right in front of it); here I've enjoyed wintering Hermit Thrushes and Ovenbirds and migrant warblers coming in to the drip in addition to the regularly occurring Black-crested Titmice. The Wetlands Trail has some great butterfly bushes where I've logged Red-bordered Metalmark and White-striped Longtail, and a martin house down by the terminus of the trail does indeed attract Purple Martins in summer! The center recently constructed a small pond and observation deck in this area where the whistling ducks sometimes like to hang.
Signage at one of the trail intersections
Sharing the trail with a Texas Tortoise
Along the Butterfly Trail
Main feeder area
Getting lost in the nursery!
Personal Checklist ●=small numbers █ = large numbers (10+)
Please keep in mind that these lists are NOT comprehensive, and that some months may have had poor overall coverage. Names in red indicate species that occur in the county but are extremely rare, or that normally do not occur in the county and are irruptive or true vagrants, and should not be expected.