Jimmy Carter Birds the Remarkable Rio Grande Valley, continued

I sent him a list of the birds we had already sighted in other states, and my only specific request was to add either a least or an American bittern to our list. We had been frustrated for years in searching for either of the two species, both of which are native to Georgia. Lee arranged for us to stay at Indian Ridge Bed and Breakfast in Mission, Texas, where Suzanne Herzing has decorated a remarkable home for visitors interested in horsemanship, birds, or butterflies. We were surprised to learn about the intense effort being made by public officials and private citizens to improve the habitat for wildlife and to encourage all communities in the Lower Rio Grande Valley to capitalize on this commitment to promote the area as a destination for committed observers and casual tourists.

Steve Labuda, U.S. coordinator of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo Ecosystems, would be our chief birding guide and we soon learned to appreciate his instant recognition of any local species either by sound or a brief glimpse. One thing we really appreciated was that he and the other birders were eager to observe and discuss the species in detail, and not just add its name to a list. We learned a lot about each bird's degree of prevalence on both sides of the Rio Grande, its migration habits, idiosyncrasies, and interesting experiences these birders had enjoyed with that species.

We spent the first afternoon with Steve and Lee at Anzalduas County Park and Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park, and sighted 20 different bird species. We added to our ABA list the buff-bellied hummingbird, great-tailed grackle, least grebe, Mississippi kite, white-tipped dove, golden-fronted woodpecker, Inca dove, plain chachalaca, Couch's kingbird, green jay, long-billed thrasher, northern beardless tyrannulet, and Altamira oriole. While wandering through the park's trails we learned that there was an elf owl nesting in a small dead tree, and we joined an assembled group, including bird watchers from four different nations, all with spotting scopes or video cameras focused on the small nest hole. We enjoyed sharing our experiences with each other while waiting for the tiny owl to appear. Some of our companions wandered off, and it was long after our scheduled supper time before an excited murmur arose, when the tiny head finally emerged. We watched her for a few more minutes and were about to leave when her mate called, off to our left in the woods. We stayed long enough to watch him fly to the tree, feed her, and fly away. It was a thrilling international event.

Father Tom Pincelli, Roy Rodriguez, and Mike Hannisian joined us for a delayed supper on that first night in Texas. I wanted to surprise and impress these experienced birders with our knowledge about two special species, and waited for a chance to mention that we had seen a rare visitor from the Falkland Islands to Colorado in 1988-a red-backed buzzard (Buteo polyosoma) that was similar to a Swainson's hawk. The other was a Bermuda petrel (Pterodroma cahow), which was thought for two centuries to be extinct but whose nesting site we had visited with their discoverer, Dr. David Wingate, on a small rocky island in Bermuda. To my surprise, the group was thoroughly familiar with both species, although they had not seen them in the United States.

We also told them about our meeting the whooping cranes that follow an ultralight airplane down from Wisconsin to overwinter in Florida each year. The flight path is quite near our home and we have gone out to meet them and assist in raising the protective fence within which they eat and rest before embarking on the next leg of their long journey. It is truly an inspiring sight to see them in formation off the wing of their "mother," and then following the small plane down into a meadow. It is equally impressive to know the dedicated workers who are rebuilding this most eastern flock. As is well known, the birds return to Wisconsin quite successfully on their own initiative as the weather warms in the spring.

A severe thunderstorm during our first night in Texas brought from two to four inches of rain on the places we planned to visit, so we had to avoid some of the wetter sites and use four-wheel-drive vehicles for the remainder of our stay. The next morning we drove to Falcon Dam and set up our scopes on a good lookout point above the spillway. Our first notable sighting was a wild Muscovy duck, which flew back and forth over the dam before dropping out of sight to land. Rosalynn and I were caught up in the excitement of our friends at this rare sighting. We also observed, for the first time, cactus wren, Harris's hawk, white-winged dove, Chihuahuan raven, neotropic cormorant, black-bellied whistling-duck, crested caracara, and green kingfisher. At that time we began looking especially for fulvous whistling-ducks, which are often seen in the area, but we were frustrated in this search. At the overlook in Roma and en route to Rio Grande City, we sighted a pyrrhuloxia and grasshopper sparrows. We stopped at the Patio Restaurant for a delicious Tex-Mex lunch, and the other patrons seemed fascinated to see a former president and first lady dining with them. When I explained the purpose of our visit to the area, they plied me with information about birds they had seen and were eager to give advice about some of the interesting sites.

Roy Rodriguez joined us for the afternoon, having thoroughly mastered information about local species during his brief five years of birding. He is proud of an expanding group of dedicated birders he is teaching who are blind. They seem to have a special facility for learning and identifying bird songs and are excited about this new opportunity to enjoy an unprecedented relationship with nature, and even to demonstrate their skills competitively. At the McAllen sewer ponds, Roy helped us locate an additional 33 species, including first-time Baird's, pectoral, and stilt sandpipers, sora, gull-billed tern, marsh wren, and long-billed dowitcher. We also added the tropical kingbird to our list. Roy had to instigate a return call from the bird, which can be distinguished from the Couch's only by its call. We saw a number of species at the World Birding Center in Edinburg, and then walked through the 12-acre Audubon Center within the town of Weslaco, where we added a Lincoln's sparrow, curve-billed thrasher, and groove-billed ani. During the day we put 49 more species on our trip list.

Father Tom joined us the next morning for visits to Lower Rio Grande, Los Ebanos, and Santa Ana wildlife reserves. A director of ABA, he is a walking encyclopedia of birding lore and a delightful companion. We saw 42 species, including a white-faced ibis. He was determined that we would find a tropical parula, and we covered a good portion of Santa Ana searching for one. At one point a clay-colored robin lit on the pathway and picked up some grass straw, and we watched this rare American bird build its nest. We were finally successful in finding the parula before ending an exciting day.

Having thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Indian Ridge in Mission, we accepted an invitation to spend the next two nights with the Breedlove family in their remarkable inn at Chachalaca Bend near Los Fresnos. Located on an oxbow lake, their property has been developed into a beautiful haven for birds, butterflies, and visitors. Our next excursion was to Port Isabel and Boca Chica beach. Rosalynn and I had often visited the islands off the coast of Georgia, so we were familiar with most of the shorebirds and doubted that we would see any new ones. On the way there, however, Father Tom led us to an interesting bird he had spotted high on a powerline tower. We made a U-turn on the highway and soon had our spotting scope focused on an Aplomado falcon. He explained that this bird, which had become extinct in the United States in the mid-1900s, had been reintroduced using techniques similar to those used with the California condor. The nearby Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge was one of the places chosen for releasing birds acquired in southern Mexico. Although there were a lot of casualties during the early years of the project, 37 pairs are now known to have formed in Texas, and about 85 young have fledged. On the way back to Brownsville from the beach we saw a white-tailed kite, a flight of more than a thousand migrating white pelicans, and later, over the city, an equal number of broad-winged hawks circling to land for the night. Brad McKinney joined us and introduced us to green parakeets and red-crowned parrots, and accompanied us for our last full day of birding. We spent the next morning at Laguna Atascosa NWR, where we observed a total of 96 species, including white-tailed hawk, reddish egret, Wilson's plover, verdin, Bewick's wren, and olive sparrow-new sightings for us. We all noticed that after spending an hour or so trying to obtain a glimpse of a particular bird, we seemed to see them everywhere after the first one appeared.

We drove that afternoon to South Padre Island, an enjoyable and productive visit that included a cruise around the bay with Scarlet and George Coley. Steve had promised during our entire visit that we would certainly see a least bittern on the island, and everyone was eager for him to avoid failure. We sighted 51 species there, including first-timers Sandwich tern and Nashville, yellow-throated, Tennessee, and blue-winged warblers. Despite eagerly searching at every site for the bittern, Steve was unable to keep his promise, and he apologized to us and the others as we headed back to Chachalaca Bend for the night. Before crossing to the mainland after sundown, he suggested that we make one more visit to the convention center boardwalk. When we arrived, an excited birder from Ohio ran up to us and reported having just seen a least bittern! We converged on the site, and soon watched it from a distance of 10 feet, walking among the cattails and then flying across to the opposite side of the small pond. His reputation saved, Steve was even happier than we were to make this sighting.

For our last morning in South Texas, we had only two hours to spend at Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary, which lies in the southernmost point of the state. We arrived there with a few birds remaining on our wish list: gray hawk, brown jay, black-crested titmouse, ruddy ground-dove, ringed kingfisher, gray-crowned yellowthroat, and short-tailed hawk. We heard both the kingfisher and yellowthroat, but were unable to sight them. As time for our departure approached, site manager Jimmy Paz said he knew where there was a nesting site of the short-tailed hawk, which required a long and circuitous route along muddy roads that were almost impassable because of the recent heavy rains.

We decided to take a chance, and were eventually close enough to focus our spotting scope on the nest about 50 feet aboveground in a large tree, but it was empty. We waited as long as possible, and just as we were preparing to leave, the hawk appeared from across the Rio Grande with nesting material in its talons, circled over the large tree, and finally landed on a bare limb overhanging the river. This was a wonderful climax to our trip because it was the first time any of the other birders with us had seen this hawk in the United States.

Throughout our visit Steve Labuda kept an accurate record of our sightings and reported that the trip total was 151 species. Of these, we added 57 American birds, and 41 to our worldwide life list. This is quite remarkable because of our having birded in Mexico, Nicaragua, Belize, Panama, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, and other states where many of the same species exist.

It was a special pleasure to meet with the dedicated staff members at several of the federal and state wildlife refuges, who assembled for discussions with us. They told us about their work, and I answered their questions about government policies, the passage of the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act, and our birding experiences in more than 25 foreign countries. Before leaving for a long-scheduled event in California, we had a press conference arranged by Lee Zeiger at his RV park, where I was able to express thanks to our new friends and to congratulate the assembled county and municipal officials for creating such a wonderful opportunity for bird watchers in the lower Rio Grande Valley.