Water Works

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Whoever wrote that little ditty about April showers didn't live in South Texas.  We do have the spring flowers (those that require little moisture), but we haven't had a drop of rain.  And a drop is about all we had in March.  Add to that temperatures already approaching 100 (and at least once this week exceeding) and winds of about 30 mph day and night (gusting to 60), and you get really dry conditions.

That's why all the avian action is staying pretty close to water sources these days--- like this  Northern Kiskadee drinking from a bird bath that's just across the driveway from the Ebony tree where its nest is under construction.  A copper dripping tube keeps water moving in this bath and attracts birds by sound as well as sight.  (Moving water is key to busy baths.  Some of our dripper systems are as simple a plastic jug with a hole in it suspended over a saucer.)

Green Jays also stay close to baths, dipping in several times a day.

I've been a little worried that the Screech-owls' nesting in a box very close to this particular bird bath might deter the bathing, but it apparently hasn't.  One bird or several are almost always there.

Except for a while yesterday morning when this bather took his turn: 

 A Cooper's Hawk always clears baths and feeders for awhile.  Not long after his drink, the hawk managed to snag a Red-winged Blackbird out of the air,  leaving only a feather or two settling in the dust of the driveway.   

I actually don't begrudge the hawk a blackbird or two--we still have hundreds!  I know many backyard watchers up north are still awaiting the Red-winged grain-devourers as early harbingers of spring, but I am really tired of them here.  One or two seem always to be scouting for the moment I fill the feeders, and before I get back to the garage, a few hundred are in the yard.  Their numbers are decreasing but not quick enough for me.  I love them for their beauty and I love them two at a time, but I just can't afford to keep feeding the hordes.  The third bird with the two red-winged raiders in the photo to the right is a Bronzed Cowbird.  They have shown up in the yard this week, ready to pester the orioles as soon as nest-building begins. 

The main water feature of the backyard is of course the Arroyo Colorado, a smaller river when it flows through Harlingen and a larger dredged shipping channel when its mixture of salt water and fresh water rises and falls with the tides as it passes our back yard.  Herons, egrets, terns, night-herons, gulls, ospreys, pelicans, cormorants, and many other water birds follow the arroyo, wading along the edge and resting in the trees along the banks. 

One of my favorite river birds is the Black-bellied Whistling Duck, the guy in the photo on the left.  Early this morning a group of eighteen Black-bellied Whistling Ducks landed on our dock and the roof of our neighbor's, waiting to share a feeder with the blackbirds. They'll do this each morning and evening for a while.  Then we'll have fewer at a time until the nearest nesting pair start bringing their large families back to the feeders.  

Another favorite bird that is always on the arroyo is the Night Heron, mostly Black-crowned but sometimes Yellow-crowned.  

The bright red eye of the Black-crowned Night-Heron is sometimes the first thing I spot when the bird hides in the oak tree.

First year night-herons are brown with large white spots. 

The long neck of this young night-heron makes me think it might be a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron rather than a Black-crowned one, though I'm not sure.  It just struck me as different, I took a photo, and later it occurred to me that maybe it was different,  I think the spots are a little smaller, also, another field mark of the very similar BCNH. 

Last week an adult Yellow-crowned Night Heron fished across the river.  Adults are easy to tell apart, even when the YCNH is scrunching its neck down in a posture more like the BCNH.

If it weren't for the water that draws in the birds, we would probably not see many birds on these hot windy days.  The wind is definitely keeping migrants from stopping by, though I have seen a couple of  Hooded Warblers at the baths.  

Hooded Orioles have paired up and like to bathe together.  Here are a male and female in a Mexican Olive tree just prior to a dip in the water-filled saucer below the tree. 

So that's the news of the week from our dry, hot, windy yard.  I'll keep filling up the baths and turning on the drippers in the front yard and the river will keep flowing past the back.  That will bring in the birds and all of us will be happy.  Unless a hungry Cooper's Hawk snags another black bird.  In the natural world not everybird  can live happily everafter.

Here's Lookin' at You

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I'm really fascinated by birds' eyes.  The intense red eye of a Bronzed Cowbird, the pale white eye of a White-eyed Vireo, the black-button eye of a Black-crested Titmouse:  these features are the first I envision when I think of these birds.  

Yes, the eyes have it.  Here are some of my favorites:

  

A Black-crowned Night Heron hides in the back-yard Live Oak tree.

A Green Heron freezes on her nest, as though thinking she's invisible.

A White Ibis's pale iris accents the bright red face.

But it's not birds alone whose eyes fascinate me.  Just look at the eye of this American Snout butterfly!  Its compound eyes must give it an advantage in finding flowers to feed on. This one is upside-down on a bloom of the fiddlewood beside the front deck. Here's a closeup in case you can't see the eye. 

Now that I think about it, the snout's snout and antennae are every bit as fascinating as that eye!  Not to mention its proboscis.  

I have looked at this photo of the snout butterfly many times since I took it last autumn--but I've always been focused on the eyes and never before noticed the proboscis, or long black feeding tube through which it gets nectar from the flowers.

Which reminds me of one last photograph I want to post:  Look at how this female Golden-fronted Woodpecker gets its nectar from the hummingbird feeder.  What a tongue!  (Click to enlarge the photo if you can't see it.) Though the long tongue is usually used for probing for insects, here it is just as effective at getting nectar. 

My camera  has helped me see so many details,  opening my eyes to nature in ways that not even my binoculars had. 

Bankside

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Yesterday as  the late afternoon sun slanted across the sky and  turned the far bank of the Arroyo a golden color, I stepped onto the back porch and snapped a quick photo.  You can see it  in the background of the blog title above. That bank, clearly visible  from the  living room as well as the porch, is a scene I will never be tired of.

It changes slightly with the seasons (what seasons we have this far south):  in spring the green will be fresher and brighter; in summer the leaves will be thicker if we've had rain and thinner if we have drought,  and the heat will have dried the tall grasses to a brown-gold; after a rain the cenizo blooms pink and the ebonies put out a new growth of green leaves and creamy blooms; even in winter the  white stalks of the Spanish daggers make a showy display.

I keep binoculars on the window sill and a scope pointed to that river bank.  There is never a time that birds aren't visible.  If you look really close, even in a picture as small as the one behind the blog title at the top of the page, you can just make out the night herons that roost in the ebonies and mesquite growing down near the water.

Fallen trees, where the banks have caved in, form really good snags that water birds perch in to dry out or watch for fish.  Belted and Ringed Kingfishers fish from the branches and Black-crowned Night Herons nap during the day so that they can fish all night.  Some kind of heron (Great Blue,  Green, Little Blue, Tri-colored)--or egret (Great, Snowy, Cattle) is always wading there.  (To test myself on the truth of that statement I just went upstairs to look out the window.  It's almost midnight, but sure enough, a Great Blue Heron is fishing along the bank.) The amount of  shallow water at the edge varies with the tides.  Sometimes there's enough space for coyotes, raccoons, and deer to walk along the edge without getting their feet wet, and sometimes the water goes right to the bank.

I took this photo a few days ago.  In it you can see an Anhinga, a Black-crowned Night Heron, and a Double Crested Cormorant on the biggest snag across from us. Look closely at the water beneath the Anhinga.  Do you see the second Night Heron, submerged up to its chest? I'm not sure why it is so low in the water, but it is interesting--something I didn't notice except in the photograph!  I cropped it and made it larger so that I could get a better look.   Maybe it was just hopping in the water for a minute as it changed locations. 

I love the Black-crested Night Herons with their bright red eyes.  In breeding season they have long white plumes that trail down their black backs and their usually yellow legs turn pink. Immature night herons (both Black-crowned and Yellow-crowned) are brown with striped chests.  They fish mostly at night and roost in the trees (and snags) along the river during the day.  Or sit on the fishing lights or the rails of the dock.  They make a hoarse quark sound, usually when they fly and especially when they have been rousted from a favorite perching/roosting place. Besides fishing along the shallow edge of the far side of the river, they also fish from the fishing dock, kind of plopping into the water when they see a fish or flying over it to scoop it up.

I just went outside on the porch to listen to night sounds. The moon is full and beautiful, touching the tops of the palm trees with silver and washing the bankside with light.  I could hear a Common Pauraque calling across the Arroyo for the first time this year and see a Night Heron stalking its prey.  Day or night, I will never tire of this place.