New Year in South Texas Dec 27, 2007—Jan 02, 2008
Posted by Kim Eckert
Kim Eckert
Kim Eckert, with over 40 years of birding experience throughout the U.S. and Canada, has now been guiding birders or teaching bird identification classes for more than 25 o...Related Trips
It was just an innocent typo on the checklist. Obviously, we weren't going to see any Green Ibis in South Texas—or anywhere else in the U.S. for that matter. But there it was on the list, Mesembrinibis cayennensis, having somehow fallen through the cracks and onto the page between White-faced Ibis and Roseate Spoonbill, and everyone certainly had a good time during the rest of the tour asking when we were going to see one.
I tried unsuccessfully to change the subject by pointing out other green birds like Green Jays, that spectacular and quintessential specialty of Deep South Texas, but, just as on all my previous tours here, the participants found themselves ignoring this gaudy bird after a couple of days. Every year it's the bird most participants want to see first; I always warn they'll be taking it for granted soon enough, and they deny that they will. But they always ignore them, and when they did this year the inevitable request arose: "Now, how about a Green Ibis?"
Even the swarm of some 800 noisy Green Parakeets staging late in the afternoon in McAllen couldn't distract the participants for long. This had to be twice the number of them I had ever seen, and one can't help but be amused by their antics on the utility wires above a busy intersection, as some sidled up to their neighbors and preened each other (the parakeets, that is, not the tour people!), while others hung inverted below the wires just for the apparent fun of it. More unexpected, though, were the Red-crowned Parrots which twice happened by our motel in Weslaco. This species, unlike the parakeets, has become much less reliable in their appearances and easy to miss in recent years, and it was certainly serendipitous for this flock to show up after our searches (and everyone else's) had been unable to find any that week.
Green, as well, is one of the kingfishers we always want to see. The conspicuous Ringed Kingfisher, another South Texas specialty, is seldom difficult to find and always a welcome sight, but the tiny and relatively quiet Green Kingfisher chooses less obvious perches and is harder to spot. So it's always a treat when we eventually find them, even if their green iridescence looks black and colorless in the shade, since their oversized and almost comic bills seem as long as their bodies.
The first Green and Ringed kingfishers everyone saw this year happened to be at Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco, which certainly turned out to be one of our key birding spots. Just outside the park was a group of Groove-billed Anis, a species which is rare or entirely absent most winters, quietly minding their own business as we watched. And at dusk there the day before, both a Common Pauraque and an Eastern Screech-Owl couldn't have been more cooperative, as they appeared almost simultaneously in the spotlight within just a few yards of the van! First the pauraque called and flew by, showing its distinctive white wing patches, before settling down nearby to let us take in at leisure his silhouette and orange eye-shine. And just a couple of minutes later, the screech-owl flew in silently to my recordings and perched some 20 feet away for all to watch as long as we cared to.
Another highly productive locale for us was farther upriver at Salineño. I wasn't at all sure we'd have much luck there, since the busy set of bird feeders maintained by Gale and Pat DeWind were under new management, so to speak. After 20+ years, the DeWinds had finally decided they were unable to return this winter, but the new volunteers kept up this famous birding landmark's traditions by attracting consistent Audubon's Orioles among the Altamiras and all the other birds (including Green Jays!) to the feeders.
Even more satisfying was the luck we had at Salineño with Muscovy Ducks (no fewer than 22 of them), a handsome adult Common Black-Hawk, and a tree decorated with Red-billed Pigeons! To find just one of these on a winter's tour is hard enough, but all three species were there this time. Note that I had only seen a black-hawk three or four times previously during my dozens of tours here. And Muscovies are perhaps found only once out of three or four trips, while Red-billed Pigeons are typically absent from the Rio Grande Valley from fall until February.
Eventually, we had to leave the Valley behind and finish the tour up the coast at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The wintering Whooping Cranes put on another fine show during our boat trip, and they were joined this time by unusually high numbers of Roseate Spoonbills and Sandhill Cranes—the latter not normally found in the refuge's marshlands, and incurring the wrath of the territorial Whoopers. (However—you guessed it!—there was not a single Green Ibis among them.)