Brazoria National
Wildlife Refuge
A Rich Meeting
Place
A freshwater slough winds through salt marshes. Rare, native bluestem
prairie graces the uplands. The greater the number of habitats, the richer
the ecology. Brazoria NWR is no exception. It has a key location on the
Texas Gulf which helps Freeport draw one of the highest Audubon Christmas
bird counts in the nation - more than 200 species.
In winter, more than
100,000 snow geese, Canada geese, pintail, northern shoveler, teal, gadwall,
American wigeon and mottled ducks fill the plentiful ponds and sloughs
to capacity. Sandhill cranes join in too.
In summer, birds that
nest on the refuge include ten species of herons and egrets, white ibis,
roseate spoonbill, mottled duck, white-tailed kite, clapper rail, horned
lark, seaside sparrow, black skimmer, and scissor-tailed flycatcher.
Home for Once Endangered
Wildlife
Look for alligators year-round on Big Slough and in refuge ponds. In dry
seasons, their trails thorough the mud and excavated gator holes are easy
to spot. Roseate spoonbills capture the pink glow of sunrise in their
wings in flight. Those same rosy feathers proved a near death sentence
when demand for feather hats decimated spoonbills, great egrets and other
fine-feathered fowl until plume hunting ended before World War I. |
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