Neither the long, hot, sticky walk through Resaca de la Palma State Park nor a lightly sprinkled upon stroll along the boardwalk of the South Padre Island Birding Center netted any new birds for us but they gave us a bit more taste of this south Texas coast. We watched pelicans dive, an alligator loll in the sun, stealthy rails and bitterns moving among the wetland reeds, and spotted the bright white dots of kingfishers perched along the resaca (Spanish for oxbow lake).