Black Bellied Whistling Duck
In 2003 through 2006 I had a small (VERY small) “ranch” south of Alice. There I enjoyed bird watching, and compiled what was for me a significant list of identified bird sightings.
Some were unique occurrences, a “one time only” event. But I didn’t list them unless, with bird book in hand and ten power binoculars in play, I could make a positive identification.
Other were frequent recurring visitors.
Such it was with the Black Bellied Whistling Duck.
The first sighting was a solitary individual, who walked across my property as if it felt at home, giving ample opportunity for certain identification.
Then there were two.
And one glorious day they slowly and majestically paraded their new family of eight across my driveway, walking single file, one adult in front, the other following the line of ducklings.
I continued to enjoy their visits while I remained on my “ranch”.
After I moved into town I occasionally saw one of these ducks perched on telephone lines!
I’ve never seen any other duck sitting on a wire — and I’ve seen a few ducks.
When they utter their unique vocalization, from their vantage point on the high telephone wire, would that be a long distance call?
Texas Cuckoo
One hot summer morning in 1988 my wife and I drove to the Pedernales State Park east of Johnson City in Central Texas. We watched for wildlife along the road leading into the park, and were rewarded with our first sighting of a punk rock roadrunner.
Roadrunners are fairly common in Texas, and I have seen many. But the sight we saw that day will long be remembered. The cuckoo sat beneath a small thorn bush just across the ditch alongside the road, and stared at us as we marveled at him. He stood and erected his crest, and amazed us with the revealed brilliant orange coloration. When he folded it he appeared as any road runner, stately in his gangly pride, with contrasting black, white and brown. But when he erected that crest the luminescent orange was magnificent!
Bird calls
When I told Stan that I had heard a roadrunner cooing, he was skeptical. “In my half century in the South Texas brush I have seen a bunch of roadrunners, and I never heard them coo.”
Well, I understood his dubiosity, but I know what I heard. I was looking right at the bird when it cooed, saw its movements when making the sound, and heard it clearly. Similar to what a pigeon does, but at a lower pitch.
I saw that bird frequently while I sat in the porch swing at my “ranch” (A one room house on a large one acre tract). The elegant fowl pursued its life in the mesquite thicket between my house and the highway, and occasionally I heard it cooing. One day, in an exuberant state of Dr. Doolittle optimism, I attempted to duplicate the sound I heard.
Frankly, I had no expectation of the same success I remember in calling a quail.
To my amazed gratification, the roadrunner replied. More than that, it began moving in my direction. I called again, probably five times in all. With each exchange, the bird moved a little closer. A few halting steps each time it answered, then a pause to assess. It moved in the open, along my driveway, approaching my position in the porch swing. Finally it became too nervous, and half ran, half flew back to the safety of the thicket.
Some years before, while sitting alone in my car at the skeet range of the Victoria Gun Club, I heard the familiar covey call of the brown bombers — and in response to my call a big cock quail walked to and around the car. He stopped beside the car door, cocked his head and looked up at me...
FOWL OF A FEATHER
Occasionally I was honored by the passing of a flight of wild geese. Canadian honkers. Beautiful. It was always a thrill to watch a flight of the big black and white birds honk their way past in an early morning fog.
One morning while I sat in my swing, reading and relaxing, I heard a flight of geese approaching. I put my book down to watch them, and I was pleased to see about twelve or fifteen geese approaching from the South, low over the trees.
But wait – there’s something strange!
They were flying in their typical V-formation. But they were low, zigging and zagging in a way never seen before.
As I watched, fascinated, they approached, generally headed toward me. And finally they were close enough to see that the leader was smaller … could it be a … ?… yes, it was!
A mallard drake – green head distinctive – was leading the flight of geese. He seemed to be trying to elude them, but they matched his every turn, across my pasture and beyond the trees.
Sparrow Hawk
I have a new companion. No, let me choose another word — a new neighbor. His awareness of me is much less than my appreciation of him. He watches me in cautious speculation whenever I am too close – but otherwise he is intent on his own pursuits, and remains blithely unaware of my gaze.
This small Sparrow Hawk sits in silent, patient watchfulness on the power line along the highway, straight out from my kitchen window. I stand in quiet admiration, observing his occasional plunge to the grass below, extracting an insect or small animal for a hasty meal. He carries it with him to his perch, eating on the mount, and then resumes the hunt.
As I sat in my porch swing, alternating my gaze from him to a red-bellied woodpecker in the mesquite across the driveway, the hawk spied an item of interest in the driveway in front of me. Swooping in colorful rufous display he swept up a tidbit too small for me to see at thirty feet – and yet he had discerned it from over thirty meters.
As I carried the garbage can to the road behind my house for pickup by the obliging county truck my ubiquitous sparrow hawk flew in acrobatic abandon not twenty feet from me, chasing a very frightened curved-bill thrasher, which protested noisily as it dove to safety in the brush pile alongside the road. The small hawk abandoned the chase, but the thrasher was so frightened that it refused to leave its refuge in the thorny limbs. It eyed me warily, but clung tenaciously to the security it had found, even though I approached within ten feet.
The sparrow hawk has been resident here for about a month. Where, I wonder, did it abide previously? And how long will it bless me with its entertaining presence?
No matter – I will enjoy it so long as it graces my neighborhood, and then I will look anew to another neighbor. Spring approaches, and with it the return of the scissortails, with their noisy chittering and graceful aerial ballet. Life is a tableau of continuing, changing delights. And I enjoy them all.
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