Beyond the Patch: a Boat Trip

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I don't spend every day hanging around my yard.  Some days we leave our patch of birds on the banks of the Arroyo and take the boat out on the river to the Laguna Madre. At dawn we leave the dock and  ride for about 20 minutes until we get to the bay.


On the way out, we see Roseate Spoonbills, Tricolored Herons, Reddish Egrets and Brown Pelicans flying from rookeries on small islands to their feeding grounds in inlets and along the shores. We smell salty air and meet fishermen returning from overnight trips. Dolphins jump in front of our boat or ride in our wake.

Leaving the mouth of the Arroyo Colorado and crossing the Intercoastal Waterway, we enter shallow water, hoping to find red fish tailing in the "skinny" waters.  When we get close to herons stalking prey in water below their bellies, we know it's time to stop the boat and wade.  Or at least Brad wades and I stay in the boat unless I've brought my kayak along.

When the sun is still low over the horizon, its brilliant red reminds me of lines from Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner:  "nor dim, nor red, like God's own head, the glorious sun uprist."

On this day we saw no fish in the shallow waters, or at least we didn't catch any, but the beauty of the sunrise made the trip worth it.  After exploring other fishing holes briefly, we decided to return to the Arroyo and go upriver looking for tarpon and snook.

I love a sunrise in the Laguna Madre, but the Arroyo is home.  If my birding "patch" is my yard, the Arroyo is an extended patch.  We boated back toward the west, past Adolph Thomae park, past Arroyo City, past our house.

Roseate Spoonbills flew above us.

Willets fished along the edge of the Arroyo.

A Crested Caracara looked on from his perch in a dead mesquite.

Passing by our house and all the other houses that line the south side of the river, we reach an area where houses disappear and both sides are lined with habitat referred to as "Arroyo Colorado Brush"  where dominant trees are Ebony, Coma, and Adelia and brush is thick and thorny. It is really only remnants of such habitat, however, as the land has been cleared for agriculture just beyond the brush along the banks.

But I like boating along the river and imagining a land where nothing has been cleared.   The state of Texas protects a portion of it as the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area where native brush  is relatively undisturbed.

The bank pictured above shows fairly thick vegetation, but you can tell it has once been cleared because of the mesquite trees that are typical of disturbed land.  Nonetheless, it is perfect habitat for one of my favorite birds. We slow down when we get to this spot and use the trolling motor to move by quietly.

Can you see the excavation in the bank?  Perhaps the cavity is an enlarged  kingfisher hole. Or perhaps it is a hole made from collapsing dirt around tree roots.

A closer look reveals a ghostly face.

Binoculars (or a zoomed-in camera lens) reveal that tucked into the hole, high up in the bank, is a  family of Barn Owls!  I can see two down-covered chicks in front of the female in this nest. Others are probably there as well.  Barn Owls can have large broods and the mother does a good job of herding her brood back into the cave behind her.  

I've seen Barn Owls nesting in boat houses, nest boxes,  and barns near the river, but I see them most frequently in these cavities in the banks.  Pale and ghostly, they are hard to spot unless you know where to look. 

Sometimes I see them fly at night along the river on strong silent wings.  The males are lighter in color than the females and their almost white underparts make them look especially like ghosts in the night.  

         Barn Owls are not the only bank dwellers we saw on the trip upriver.  Another favorite pair of river birds announced their presence with loud machine-gun rattling and insistent bobbing up and down from branches overhanging the water:  a pair of Ringed Kingfishers courted near their nest holes on the opposite bank.  

This photo shows the kingfisher with mouth open and tail cocked, loudly answering the equally loud rattling of  its mate perched about 50 feet upriver.   Ringed Kingfishers are one of three species of kingfishers here in the Rio Grande Valley.  Green Kingfishers, also here year-round, are much smaller and green.  The Belted Kingfishers that winter here (the only kingfisher in most of the US) look similar except that they are about three inches smaller and their beaks are not nearly as large.  

I wasn't able to figure out for sure which of several holes in the bank belonged to the kingfishers.  They seem to like to make extras.





Groove-billed Anis sang in a mesquite tree along the river. Below is a photo of an ani that was banded  a week ago  in the Las Palomas WMA that borders the Arroyo near where the owl and kingfishers nest. I have volunteered to help with the banding a few times.

At first glance, anis look like grackles, but the beak of course is distinctive, as is their posture and their two-note call.  We've been seeing anis on the fence across the arroyo.  In years past I've watched them ride on the backs of deer, eating ticks.  (I know:  yuck!  But such interesting things to be seen from the window overlooking the river is the reason my spotting scope never leaves its spot at the back window.)

Another highlight of the trip upriver was a good look at the longest Altamira Oriole nest I have ever seen. It seemed twice as long as the nest Altamira Orioles built this year in our oak tree.  Comparing the nest in this photo to the ten-inch oriole that is peering inside, I'm guessing the nest is a minimum of two feet long.

All in all, our boat trip was successful even without catching fish. We love living here on the Arroyo Colorado where a short boat ride extends our backyard beyond its narrow borders.

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This is an experiment:  I've never posted a video before but I did take one of the Ringed Kingfishers.  You can see only one bird in this wobbly movie, but you can hear both of them calling back and forth.  Apologies for the poor camera work--but it's so much fun to watch these birds bobbing up and down and to listen to their loud rattling calls that I am posting it anyway.  Or at least trying to.  Lets hope it works.

Blind Spot

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Today was so lovely that I spent much of it outside.  It was just cool enough (high somewhere in the 70's) that I could sit in what is becoming one of my favorite spots:  a chair blind under the anacua tree beside the driveway.  It's a little folding lawn chair enclosed in a small attached tent with zip-out windows.  The birds can't see me--or if they do they are not alarmed--and I can get pictures of them at the birdbaths close by.  The Northern Mockingbird above was one of my first visitors. He's taking a break from defending the ripening fiddlewood berries on the shrubs near the deck.

Another bather was this stunning bird--a Yellow-throated Warbler that hung upside down on a branch of the oak tree and then flittered in to the terra cotta saucer-baths.   A common yard bird for us in the winter, it's nonetheless a special guest.

Green Jays are all over the yard, having had an apparently very successful nesting season.   Even noisier today than the Kiskadees, with buzzy croaks and snores and cheh-cheh-chehs, the jays ruled the yard.  The bather above looked unusual with its outer yellow tail feathers being the only ones in its tail! The jay below, messily eating the orange suet cake,  displays the blue/green tail that is typical. 

Green Jays don't seem to fly long distances.  They fly from tree to tree, landing near the bottom and hopping to higher branches. They follow one another, tails flashing yellow V's of those outer tail feathers,  and make a ruckus with their odd sounds.

Black-crested Titmouse

Other birds I saw at the baths from my "blind spot" included Carolina Wrens, Black-crested Titmice , a White-throated Sparrow, a Baltimore Oriole, Orange-crowned Warblers, an Ovenbird, Great-tailed Grackles, Red-winged Blackbirds, Lesser Goldfinches, and lots and LOTS of House Sparrows.


Since the wind was relatively calm today, I could hear birds all around me as I sat in the blind.  Once, as  I played my Ibird Pro app to hear the call of a White-throated Sparrow, the sound of wings and feet on the camouflage tent fabric startled me.  I think it was the titmouse pictured above but I was "blind" in my blind, at least to what was going on over my head.

While I was trying to get a picture of the warbler I heard loud familiar calls clattering overhead.  It was a sound I knew I should know--but since it was out of place in that part of the yard, I couldn't quite figure out what it was.  To get a good look at the noisy mystery birds, I would have had to climb awkwardly out of the little chair/tent contraption I was in, a  move that would scare all the birds at the baths, so I remained where I was.

Later, when my neighbor told me he had seen five large Ringed Kingfishers flying over our yards south of the houses calling loudly their wild clattering rattle, I realized what I had heard.  We usually see this largest of our three species of kingfishers on the north side of the yards, along the river, in ones or twos, but today they were flying high in a group over the front yards. Later from the deck I took a photo of one of them. He's just a dot above the palms, but that shape is unmistakable.  I missed the parade of five of the chattering giant kingfishers, but I didn't miss their chatter! 

The most contant bird sound of the day was one that might be my favorite:  the resonant rolling call of the Sandhill Cranes as they fly overhead to the fields across the way.

When I wasn't in the blind, I was on the deck that overlooks the front yard, another favorite viewing spot, especially nice since it's attached to the upstairs of the house and is convenient for viewing birds before I'm even dressed for the day--pajama birding.  This morning I was rewarded for putting niger thistle in the finch feeder by a visit from American Goldfinchs and Pine Siskins.  The siskin is especially welcome since it is not often here and because it reminds me of bird-feeding in Oklahoma when my children were young.  Whenever it snowed, and the finches were thick around the feeders, my son would stand with arms outstretched and birdseed in his upturned palms, waiting for almost-tame-with-hunger pine siskins to eat from his hands.

A Carolina Wren serenaded me from the bougainvillea nearest the deck, the reddish-brown of his breast especially bright, maybe because of the morning sun and maybe because it echoed the deep apricot of the nearby blooms.


Out by the road a small brown bird with a white eye-ring called to an echoing bird in a brasil tree.  It was too far to see just what it was though its call was distinctive.  I'll figure out what it is and maybe post that later.  For now, I'm including its picture because the background, so different from the wren's blooming backdrop, looks almost like trees in winter in northern climates.  Of course, what it's actually perching in is not winter woods, but a brush-pile of dead branches.

Our trees are still green with foliage, but the winter of my imagination (where branches are bare and snowy Pine Siskins eat from a little boy's hand) can almost be seen in this picture.

Back to the Back Yard (and the Front)

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Winter is not my favorite season in most of the country, but it certainly is in South Texas along the Arroyo Colorado! It was nice to sit on the little deck looking over the front yard yesterday and watch our winter birds. An Orange-crowned Warbler enjoyed the grapefruit we put out (fruit picked up from under our neighbor's tree). It was just one of three warblers in the yard. A Wilson's Warbler and a Yellow-rumped Warbler also flitted around.

Best of all, we were surprised by another visitor at the grapefruit--a Baltimore Oriole enjoying the fruit and the warm winter sunshine. I remember being surprised last February when a Baltimore made it a three-oriole day--along with a Hooded Oriole and the usual year-round Altamiras. Yesterday was only a

two-oriole day as there doesn't seem to be a wintering Hooded around. One spring we had a five-oriole day: Hooded, Altamira, Baltimore, Orchard, and Fuertes's. My favorite of course is the rare Fuertes's Oriole that spent a couple of summers in our yard a decade ago. I look for one every spring and keep hoping to see another.

Today is another warm day with temps in the mid 70's. The rest of the week should be in the 80's. We'll probably take the boat out to the bay--or

maybe just fish and bird in the Arroyo. Here's a picture of a Ringed Kingfisher fishing across the Arroyo. (Not a great picture since the camera was zoomed in ((or out)) all the way from my back porch. But it does show that beautiful red breast.)

We have all three kingfishers

(Ringed, Belted, Gre

en) at this time of year. The Green is my favorite. One used to stay in our boat house most of the time. Then we tore the boat house down and replaced it with a lift with no side walls. The little Green Kingfishers still fly by--always low, flying about a foot above the water--but they hang out in someone else's boat house.

The large Ringed Kingfishers nest along the river in holes they excavate out of the banks. About a mile upriver are some old kingfisher holes that are now inhabited by Barn Owls. Maybe tomorrow I'll try to get photos of the owls if we take the boat that direction.

My husband just called me away from the computer to look out the front window at a pair of cardinals. Beautiful birds. Yesterday there were two Pyrrhuloxias in the back. They look like caricatures of cardinals, beaks and crests comically exaggerated.

Other birds in the front yard: Blue-gray Gnatcatcher; Inca, White-tipped, Mourning, and White-winged Doves; Lincoln's Sparrow; Lark Sparrow; Kiskadees and Green Jays (of course); Long-billed and Curve-billed Thrashers; Mockingbirds; Black-crested Titmice; Buff-bellied and Ruby Throated Hummingbirds (maybe a Black-chinned: two of what I assumed were Ruby-throated hummers had dark green heads and another one had more of a grayish head; female hummers are hard to distinguish--at least for me)

Other birds in the back yard (river side): Great Blue and Tri-colored Herons; Black-crowned Night Herons; Great and Snowy Egrets; Osprey; Harris's Hawk; Laughing, Herring, and Ring-billed Gulls; Caspian, Forster's, and Royal Terns; Anhinga; Ruddy Duck; Double-crested Cormorant; Black and Turkey Vultures; Great-tailed Grackles, House Sparrows, Starlings (none of those my favorites); Red-winged Blackbirds. Of course the Brown and White Pelicans.

I'm sure I've left out some birds, but this list shows it was a good day on the Arroyo Colorado! I'll go back out for awhile and see what I can see. From where I sit right now (inside the living room) I can see the brown grass on the bank turning golden in the late afternoon sun. Now I just have to decide whether to sit out on the front deck to look for the Baltimore Oriole or to watch the riverbank from the deck at the top of the boat lift. (Retirement is so full of hard decisions!)