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Making time to get in some birdwatching
Published October 25, 2009
I was able to stop only briefly at the creek on Saturday morning since part of my duties this weekend included covering the Fiesta De Amistad International Parade, and I wanted to get to my station near the reviewing stand early.
Usually I spend at least two hours lounging around San Felipe Lions Memorial Park on Saturday morning, but yesterday I just didn’t have the luxury of doing that.
We’ve been talking a lot about the kingfishers of San Felipe Creek recently, since San Felipe Creek, and particularly that quiet stretch of the creek between Tardy Dam and the Losoya Street bridge, is a place where all three North American kingfishers, the Ringed, the Belted and the Green, can be found together.
Often I focus on the Ringed and Green Kingfishers because they are what birdwatchers call “specialty birds,” birds that can be found in only a particular area of the United States. The Ringed Kingfisher, for example, can be found in the U.S. only in Texas, and in Texas only along the southern half of the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
The Green is only slightly more common. It can be found in the United States in south Texas and along the desert streams of southern Arizona.
By far the most common kingfisher in the United States is the Belted Kingfisher.
The Belted Kingfisher can be found just about everywhere south of the Arctic Circle in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
In Del Rio, the Belted joins its relatives, the Green and the Ringed, to form our local triumvirate of kingfishers.
On Saturday morning, one of the first birds I saw was a female Belted Kingfisher. She was using the metal scaffold of an old diving board upstream from Tardy Dam as a perch. I snapped a few quick shots of her before she flew off.
Belted Kingfishers are about 13 inches long, according to my Sibley’s, compared to the 16-inch length of the Ringed and the 8.75-inch length of the Green.
The Belted, like the Ringed and Green, sports an oversized bill that makes its head look too big for its body.
The male Belted Kingfisher is a study in slate blue and white, slate blue above and mostly white below. The female is also slate blue and white, but has touches of rust along her sides and a rust-colored band across the middle of her abdomen.
I admit that I often take the Belted for granted because it is much more common than the Ringed or the Green, so it was fun to make up for the neglect by watching and photographing the one on Saturday morning.
And talk about taking birds for granted!
Without a doubt the most common bird to be found along the creek is the Great-tailed Grackle.
Now whatever you may feel about this bird, you have to admit that it is successful. In fact, its success has often caused it to run afoul of humankind.
Personally, I admire grackles. I think they have developed some unbeatable survival strategies, and whenever someone on the Discovery Channel talks about the evolution of birds from dinosaurs, I think of the grackle.
You don’t have to look very hard to see the T-rex there!
Take care until next week, and don’t forget to send me your nature photos.
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Karen Gleason is the Del Rio News-Herald’s senior staff writer, a longtime birdwatcher and fan of the outdoors. Contact her at karen.gleason(at)delrionewsherald.com.
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