North Coast Cafe, South

World Birding Center, Texas Tropical Trail, Falcon Lake

Falcon Lake State Park

The reservoir that created Falcon Lake was created by damming the Rio Grande in 1953. The official proclaimed purpose of the dam was flood control and hydroelectric generation, but a great benefit to wildlife, and consequent ecotourism is also a result—especially birding tourists who visit what Texas now actively promotes as a World Birding Center along the Texas Tropical Trail.

A single day's sightings no more that 20 steps from a  Falcon State Park campsite include half a dozen first life-time birds. A tiny Verdin, not much bigger than a hummingbird I was told is a species  unique to the south west. Several Orange Crowned Warblers danced from twig to twig in a tree above the feeders in the bird viewing area set up and maintained by volunteers. Campers set out feeders too, and hang oranges and marshmallows from the trees near their campsites. The Verdin was attracted to a marshmallow topped with a slice of lime.

Perhaps the most striking “first bird” I saw today was the Pyrrhuloxia. A a handsome relative of the Northern Cardinal, gray with a rose colored breast ,and short, thick yellow beak. Northern Mockingbirds were plentiful as were Red-winged Blackbirds whose red patches on its wings were partially concealed making the yellow strip more prominent. They  seemed to me to be larger than the same birds so commonly seen on the North Coast.

On the drive south from Laredo on Rt. 83 just outside Zapata I saw a Roadrunner, still, in a pose, unlike the scampering, fast-action  figure I remember from .cartoons. Crossing one of several bridges over inlets and backwaters of the dammed Rio Grande forming Falcon Lake, I spotted a small flock, maybe 8 or 10, White Pelicans just soaring in the thermals. Their ,wide black-tipped wings making for an easy identification. Turkey Vultures flew over head as I talked to a fellow camper who told about the excitement yesterday over the sighting of a pair of Screech Owls near the feeding station which drew birders from all over the park..

Reading & Writing About Nature

Sunflowers in a field.
Goldfinches everywhere.
They gorge on seed. They rise
To rest along the power line, then fall
Like drizzled lemon drops, like lozenges
Of candied yellow light.
Two weeks a year, goldfinches
Gather on sunflowers here.
These evenings after supper,
You see them in the honey-soft glow
As if they'd trapped and somehow stored
The rapture of September's sun.
You see goldfinches flicker
Among sunflower lanes,
Through mortal tides of light,
Through streams of apricot and chardonnay,
And you resolve to live
Your life with greater sympathy.
Sunflowers bowing their char black dials,
Their petals twist and writhe
Like fires, like silk coronas blazing west.
How inconceivable, then,
The pewter cold-front clouds,
The shabby settlement of crow and wren.
Though no one hears the oath,
You shall, you tell yourself,
Forgo deceit, increase the tithe.
Atone. Forgive. Embrace. You watch
Goldfinches and sunflowers both
Begin to fade. By subtle green degrees
They shed that bullion luster of the sun
Until the finches ricochet
Like flints among the drowsing flower heads.
Perhaps, as I have done,
You'll pace the darkling half mile home,
Intent on picking up the telephone
To reconcile with long-lost friends.
You will apologize, concede.
You'll vow to never, ever, ever let
Such distance grow again.
But then you reach your door and find
The day diminished to a thin blue rind
Of light above the township silhouette.
How nice a hot bath sounds.
Dessert. An herbal tea.
Perhaps you'll read the Arts
And Leisure pages of The Daily News.
With every stair you climb
Sleep settles just a little more behind
The knees, beneath the shoulder blades.
The calls, you tell yourself,
Perhaps some other time.

 

Daniel Anderson

The Southern Review
Spring 2005

Signals of Spring, Pt.2 Canada Geese

The sky is full of them, night and day. At night one can hear their honking overhead presumably so they can stay together flying in the dark.

But they honk as they fly in daylight too, often in huge aerial V-shaped rafts of scores of birds. I can't be sure, but it sounds as if the leading birds do the honking.

I wonder what the purpose of of the sound is. We know from the recent studies of young  captive birds guided in their first migration by humans (sometimes in ultra-light aircraft) View this photo ) that the young birds learn their life-long migratory pathways by imprinting on landmarks along the way. I wonder if they ever get lost flying at night?

Signals of Spring

It seems late this year, daytime temps in low 30s. But the surest signal I know of, aside from the honking Canada geese overhead at night, are these little beauties. My favorite clump arose one day last week when a little sunshine hit their spot off the porch. The next morning when I looked for them they were  frozen solid blossoms and all, dripping with tiny icicles.

Winter Fishing for Steelhead

• Anglers on the North Coast are a dedicated lot not easily discouraged by a little ice and snow.  Unlike their more stoic brethern, the ice fisher--those who bundle up to sit near an open hole in the ice awaiting a slugish fish to wander by, these brave souls are after one of sport fishing's prize catches: Steelhead trout.
•                                                  This magnificent fish (Oncorhynchus mykiss ) is a rainbow trout that was first intoduced to Lake Ontario in the 1870s from the Pacific Coast where they spend a part of there lives in the sea. But while the Steelhead  found  on the North Coast spawn in streams like their Pacific cousins, they use the   
• large lake waters of Ontario as their ocean.
• 
  North Coast steelhead reproduce in the late winter and spring.  The males usually come upstream first, typically in mid- March continuing to  early May. The females follow to deposit eggs in nests made by fanning their tails on the gravelly bottom in shallow water.
• After the eggs are fertilized they are mixed or covered with gravel and both parents return to deep water unlike their Pacific salmon relatives whose life cycle ends after spawning.
• The Steelhead  leave their eggs and young fish to develop on their own. The time required for the eggs to develop depends on the water temerature--eggs develop faster in warm water. Young fish migrate to deeper, cooler, open waters when they are about 6-inches long. 
• Adult fish average 20-24 inches long and weigh 5-10 pounds, with a few individuals weighing over 20 pounds.

Great Trees: Northern Red Oak

 Now that's one Greaaaaaaat  Tree!  Read more here

But, don't just take my word for it.  Check it out here

The Voice of the Mourning Dove

Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
For low, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on earth; the time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the mourning dove is heard in our land.
---Song of Solomon, 2:10-12

Reading and Writing About Nature

I thought at first that I was seeing a heavenly invasion, that calm mid-September day, as I walked up toward the house from the woods. The sun was shining brilliantly in the dry air of early autumn and had dropped just below the top of the Tulip Poplars. With my eyes barely in the shadow of the dense foliage, I saw in the sun's rays dozens of dazzling specks that might have been slowly westward-moving satellites; or very high-flying reconnaisance aircraft. Something from another world, perhaps?

Nature writing at its best by Fred First