CORPUS CHRISTI - A parade of baby ducklings at Suter Park was a reminder that it is the season for birds to make more birds.
Because of the continued drought, this will be a perilous year for bird reproduction. Food and water are scarce. Predators are hungry. Eggs and baby birds are tasty tidbits.
Birders should do all they can to help nesting birds. Water can be made available in almost any kind of container. A large, flat dish that goes under a plant makes a good bird bath. It should be kept clean and full of fresh water. Wild bird seed, in feeders or on rocks or just on the ground, disappears in a hurry. Black sunflower seeds are popular.
I now leave a feeder up year round. The syrup is easy: 1 cup sugar to 4 cups of water.
Many species of birds nest in South Texas and, with the warming trend in the climate, more are coming every year. Some species raise several broods each summer.
Familiar yard birds are northern mockingbird, northern cardinal, and several kinds of dove. Besides the well known mourning doves, there are Inca doves, and now white-winged doves. These latter are larger and have a white mark along the edge of the wing when they fly. They make a nice nesting sound before dawn.
A large Mexican bird that has moved to the area is the kiskadee flycatcher with a bright yellow breast and a loud vocalization of its name. Another southern addition is the buff bellied flycatcher — it has a bright pink bill and green tail. This bird is larger than the migrant ruby-throated or black-chinned.
Several species of thrasher, long-billed, curve-billed and brown, can nest. Out in the suburbs, in suitable habitat, other species can still be found. One of these is the eastern meadowlark with yellow breast and lovely call.
I have not mentioned shore and water birds that nest on offshore islands or in lakes, marshes or around ponds. A common nester in such habitats are Red-winged blackbirds. The water level in some of these ideal nesting locations though, is dangerously low.
Back to the ducks — those at Suter Park are mottled ducks. This species is related to better known black ducks of the middle west and east coast. Other ducks that might breed are ruddy ducks, also known as blue-bills, a breeding characteristic of this species.
Also recently seen at Suter were purple gallinules, a very showy chicken with large yellow feet. Others there could be coots, black duck types with white bills, or common moorhens black with red around their white bills.
Pied billed grebes and least grebe are nesters, as are clapper and sora rails. Black-necked stilts, with pretty pink legs, nest in marshes. On off shore islands, and sometimes at Indian Point, look for American oyster catchers. Several species of terns nest on beaches or reliably on the island in the bay in front of Rockport.
There are Sandwich, Forster's, royal and Caspian terns and least tern and gull-billed. Black-skimmers, with orange scoop bills for feeding in the surf, nest on Rockport beach.
I haven't begun to mention all our resident nesters. Look also for great egrets and roseate spoonbills, great blue herons and tri-colored herons, reddish egrets, and sandpipers, willets and laughing gulls.
Get a field guide. Take a course, join a birding club. Birds are interesting, and here they are still plentiful.
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