Birding for beginners in South Texas along the Gulf Coast

12 year-old nabs largest yellow perch on Earth and sets record
January 19, 2015
Massive Galveston Bay Oyster Lease May Be Legal
January 19, 2015

B821828778Z.1_20150113093916_000_GQNDIQ5H.2_ContentSOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas What a library is to a researcher, a chocolate shop to a sweet tooth and a mountain to a climber — that’s what South Padre Island can be to a novice birder.

Resource. Joy. Adventure.

This town at the southern end of a slim barrier island that hugs the Texas Gulf Coast from near Matagorda almost to Brownsville is an open-air aviary of known, lesser-known, seldom-seen, Texas-only, shy, raucous and graceful bird species — more than 400 visiting or nesting residents, according to the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center.

All of this flutter and flap make it a gimme for spotting birds, something every beginner can appreciate. Want can’t-miss colour? The brilliant green jay will oblige. Need something big? Brown pelicans are handy. Hoping for something with brag rights? Look among blossoms for a buff-bellied hummingbird, a sprite that migrates into the toe of Texas and stays there in spring and summer.

For the person who loves nature and would like to become a serious or hobbyist birder, South Padre Island — both the island and town that share the name — is a place to get started.

So many birds funnel through this area where the Central and Mississippi migratory flyways converge, that it’s impossible to not see flyers specific to the Rio Grande Valley and others you’d have to travel through several states and Canada to inspect as closely.

“It’s not so important that (watchers) know the birds by name but that they enjoy it and understand habitat,” says Scarlet Colley, a coastal birding authority and director of the Sea Life Center in Port Isabel, on the mainland end of the bridge linking the island with the rest of Texas.

As for South Padre, it’s “absolutely fabulous for beginners,” she says, adding, “Every year, you learn a little more.”

Although March to early May are the best weeks for seeing migrants, enough avian visitors spend spring and summer in the area that the bird spotting remains good through summer and into the southbound fall migration. Waterfowl gather here in winter.

Without leaving the immediate area, and armed with binoculars and a field guide to birds, it’s a cinch to compile a memorable trip list. I did just that over four days on the island and nearby mainland.

I consider myself an advanced beginner, able to identify back-yard and fenceline birds, some hawks and vultures overhead, and a share of other species here and overseas. But on this trip, I laughed at myself for focusing my binoculars on “birds” that turned out to be low-floating buoys. Nonetheless, as I drove back to Dallas, my notebook contained a roster of 86 species identified.

Although the Rio Grande Valley has many sites where birders can scan trees, grasses, shrubs and shores, I limited my treasure hunt to five: beach, a boat ride into South Bay (where dolphins are a bonus), the Arroyo Colorado River, Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, and the boardwalk shared by the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center and the town’s convention centre.

Along the nut-brown sands of the beach, palm-size sanderlings (“wave runners”) dash to receding water to check for morsels left behind, then dart landward as a new roller flattens onto the beach. Laughing gulls hoot and cackle at hand-holding tourists and fitness enthusiasts pacing the flat miles of sand. Basic-brown willets work the water’s edge, tall enough to stalk the shallows and dig for mollusks or crabs. Terns, their black heads looking like well-oiled toupées, jet overhead.

Scarlet’s Fins to Feathers nature cruise into South Bay pauses at isolated shorelines where privacy-loving plovers, least sandpipers, cormorants, night herons, spoonbills and more are near enough to the idling boat that it’s possible to study their identifying marks. We nose toward a grove of black mangroves where some of their previous water-borne excursionists have seen the elusive mangrove warbler. A canary-yellow bird with a handsome chestnut head and sweet song, it’s a relatively new nester along the coast. Serious birders come from far away to see it, and a spotting would be a coup for a beginner. But, today it’s hunkered against an early-evening spring breeze and refuses to show itself.

I move from gulf to river on a four-hour cruise on the Arroyo Colorado with Aaron Reed of Kiskadee Charters. This tributary of the Rio Grande is 90 miles long, but we’ll cover only 26, from Laguna Madre, the bay sandwiched between South Padre Island and the mainland, to docks by Harlingen upriver. Aaron knows my heart’s desire. I’d long hoped to see a great kiskadee, a South Texas flycatcher that also dives for fish. Lemon yellow underneath, reddish brown on wings and tail, with broad black horizontal stripes on its white head, the kiskadee is an eye-catcher. Ear-catching is its loud call, a trumpeted, “Not me!”

Aaron knew just where to aim his 18-foot fishing skiff to find a kiskadee. Several, in fact, hollering denials and sailing among the trees and brush. I note in my field guide, “10:10 a.m. Joy!”

Three species of kingfishers (ringed, belted and green), osprey in trees and overhead, a dervish of gulls whirling above a wharf, the dusky plumage of a green heron, hawks, wild turkeys and more add to amazements along the river. Aaron’s trip list numbers 53 species.

The 90,000 acres of the Laguna Atascosa refuge, about an hour from the town of South Padre Island, is at the convergence of desert, temperate, costal and tropical climates, and the great diversity of birdlife (415 species tallied) and wildlife find niches within the variations. Of the 50 ocelots — small wildcats — remaining in the U.S., 20 are on the preserve, according to Sue Woodson, guiding a two-hour tram tour of the 15-mile Bayside Wildlife Drive. She and her husband, Dave, are knowledgeable volunteers, catching the pop-up of bobwhite quail in a bush’s low branches, spotting a family of white-tailed deer in tall grass, picking out savannah sparrows flitting on a mud bank.

Trails behind the refuge’s visitor centre offer delights as well, especially in the racketing of garrulous, pheasant-size chachalacas and the loud comments by the green jay, a Ferrari among birds with green, blue, black and bright yellow feathers. Watchers bring spotting scopes, long-lens cameras and the naked eye to the trails’ watering holes, and all see wonders.

The easiest pickings, however, are at the island’s birding and nature centre and next-door convention centre, where a linked mile-long boardwalk meanders over mud flats, by streams, past weedy fields to marsh and sandy shore.

Saltwater, freshwater and brackish water come together here and concentrate the birds.

“They’re everywhere. They each have their own habitat,” Patricia Burke, birding centre volunteer co-ordinator, says.

“We have the most co-operative birds in the (Rio Grande) valley,” says Tamie Bulow, birding centre manager. “They’re so agreeable to being looked at by people on the boardwalk.”

A curlew, its long bill like a pry bar, levers mollusks from the mud. A white ibis preens with its curved red bill. A spotted sandpiper bobs its back end like a boogie king. A reddish egret stands motionless, a still-life of posture and smoke-and-rust feathers.

“There’s such a wide variety,” Tamie says. “Big birds are entertaining for beginning birders because they’re so easy to identify, and we have a lot of these.”

The close-ups from the boardwalk hold potential for what Tamie and Aaron call the “aha!” bird — the sighting so exciting that it transforms a casual watcher into a birder.

South Padre’s hundreds of species seem to campaign for the “aha!” title, to be the switch that turns a beginner on for life.

If you go

WHERE TO STAY:

I chose the Palms Resort (3616 Gulf Blvd.; 1-800-466-1316; palmsresortcafe.com. This friendly, non-smoking, 29-unit lodging was a condo complex in the late 1970s and has been updated and is well-maintained. Rooms have kitchenettes. Spring rates from $85. The attached Cafe on the Beach is excellent.

RESOURCES:

South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center, 6801 Padre Blvd. in South Padre Island; 956-243-8179; spibirding.com. Exhibits, a short film, observation tower, shop with nature books and access to the boardwalk. Entry: $5 for adults; $4, seniors and students.

Kiskadee Charters, based in Port Isabel; 956-433-3455; Rates: about $225 for private, four-hour cruise for three to four people. Birding or fishing. Tailored for each group.

Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, 956-748-3607; fws.gov (click on “wildlife refuges”). Tram ($4) and van ($5) tours available seasonally. Refuge fee: $3 per vehicle.

South Padre Island visitor centre, 600 Padre Blvd.; 1-800-767-2373; sopadre.com. Get Rio Grande Valley Birding & Butterfly Map to hot spots.

World Birding Center, a group of nine birding sites in the Rio Grande Valley; worldbirdingcenter.org

Fins to Feathers (Scarlet Colley), 956-299-1957; www. fin2feather.com. Three-hour cruises in South Bay are $45 per person. Sea Life Center, 110 N. Garcia, Port Isabel; spisealife.org

Paragraphs, a bookstore with a strong selection of field guides and references; 5505 Padre Blvd.; 956-433-5057; paragraphsbooks.com.

Source: The Spec.com

Loading

Comments are closed.