Located on the central Rio Grande flyway, Rio Grande Nature Center State Park offers excellent bird watching throughout the year. Visitors can observe about 250 species of birds including roadrunners and wood ducks. A trail system along the river, demonstration gardens and indoor and outdoor wildlife viewing areas add to this valuable public resource.
The bosque, or riverside forest, features two miles of nature trails which wind through tall cottonwoods and past willow thickets and open sand flats alongside the Rio Grande. Park visitors in winter might observe Sandhill cranes at the river and porcupines in the trees. In summer lizards skitter across the trails and hummingbirds investigate flowering plants.