FOR THE BIRDS
Spring migration continues

Birding enthusiasts Nan Dietert and Lyndon Holcomb are reporting on local and area birding. To report a sighting, contact them at lyndonholcomb@yahoo.com.

Upon the arrival of the chestnutsided and the bay-breasted warblers, some of our friends have expressed their deep sadness. You might wonder why, for these are truly some of the most beautiful warblers that nature's paintbrush has produced. The sadness comes because these arrivals signal the "beginning of the end." These birds are some of the late season migrants for Texas. The "early-birds" who started in late February and the mid-season migrants that generally come from March to early April have been tantalizing and whetting our appetites all this time; now these new arrivals remind many of the ticking clock -how the time flies! If you have waited and waited for the spring migration, even a reminder of the long wait for fall migration sets the sentimental birder to pining. We will have to wait three, four, or even five months to see some of our favorite birds again, unless we also migrate and move with them.

On the other hand, much of this migration stuff never ends. Let's consider the black terns. We wait through the long winter to see them again in the spring when they move back up to their breeding grounds on the prairies of Southern Canada and the Northern United States, but if you ply the Corpus Christi Ship Channel during the summer you can find black terns in June, July, August, and so on. The sub-adult black terns (the young from last year, the non-breeding birds) are in no hurry, are lingering, and may never leave, and as the summer draws to an end, the older adults, the early breeders, are arriving -- already on their return trip to their wintering grounds on the northern coasts of South America. This is quite remarkable, isn't it?

I recommended a remarkable book many moons back that I might mention again. This book deals with migration and is titled "Living on the Wind." It was written by Scott Weidensaul, and in his opening preface, he writes, "At whatever moment you read these words, day or night, there are birds aloft in the skies of the Western Hemisphere, migrating. If it is spring or fall, the great pivot points of the year, then the continents are swarming with billions of traveling birds ..." and he ends the preface with, "This book covers a lot of ground. Over the course of more than six years, I traveled virtually the length of the hemisphere, logging nearly seventy thousand miles by jet, car, bush plane, sailing ketch, tundra buggy, dugout canoe, horseback, and on foot -- yet traveling fewer miles than a single small sandpiper would in its short lifetime, propelled only by muscle and the instinct to migrate."

I cannot read this book without getting cold chills and goose-bumps, and when I see evidence of this great event, I can only look at these migrants with humbling awe and wonder. The last two strong cold fronts have brought an unbelievable variety of migrating birds to our Coastal Bend. Thank goodness the last front brought the much-needed rain and has hatched many insects for the tired and hungry migrants, and given most of the farms a prayed-for and timely rain.

I was trying to think of the farmers on Saturday, April 26, because the rain was almost washing out our last spring migration trip on the Fennessey Ranch. But the rain subsided at 8 a.m. (trip was for 7:30) and with the clearline on the western horizon and high hopes (we were only slightly late and slightly wet), off we went in search of birds with the promise of lunch overlooking a 200- acre lake (with purple gallinule and least grebe). Not a bad day to look forward to!

We had steady sightings of Mississippi kite with one swallow tailed kite (with rave reviews) throughout the mid-day period. Only smatterings of Franklin's gulls were seen, but most were right overhead and for some a "life bird." The bald eagle nest now has a big chick sitting up-right on the edge of it. He is sometimes left alone and is being fed by both adults.

Throughout the day we saw "good" birds with the green kingfisher, brown-crested flycatchers, yellow billed cuckoos, painted and indigo buntings, chestnut-sided and black-throated green warblers and summer tanagers a delight.

See you out on the migration trail!