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with Phyllis Yochem
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Tuesday, May 23, 2000
Shorebirds lay claim to Oso by flitting and fishing along pools and rivulets
Usual suspects along with a few unexpected visitors round out lively population
The Oso is often the scene of shorebird action. On May 11, we went there in the late afternoon to look for a suspected whimbrel glimpsed a few days before.
We began by driving very slowly south along the edge of the road between Texas A&M University Corpus Christi and Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. The amount of water held in this wetland can vary greatly and its depth determines which birds are there.
That evening there were open dry areas, but with many shallow pools and rivulets cutting across. One deep channel, about a half block south of the school, almost always attracts birds. Willets and lesser yellowlegs feed along its edges, black skimmers seine the surface of the water, peeps fly in, and terns dip for small fish. In some seasons, clapper rails may edge from the surrounding cover to swim across the channel.
Baby plover
Through a patch of gaillardia, stunted but bravely blooming by the roadside, a cattle egret strode, its spring plumage waving in the breeze. On the small spoil bank out in the Oso were both brown and white pelicans, many royal terns and a solitary roseate spoonbill, also neotropic cormorants. Another spoonbill across the channel attracted our attention with its gorgeous color.
We drove on, over the hump of the bridge that admits water into the Oso from Corpus Christi Bay. Least terns were fishing in the water below the bridge. In the Oso beyond here, sheets of sand are penetrated by small fingers of water, fringed in low foliage, and invisible from the road. Out of this greenery emerged a protective adult Wilson's plover shepherding a baby.
Far back from the road, a deeper cut held a small flock of marbled godwits. It was with this group we first observed the whimbrel. Godwits have bills that curve upward while whimbrels resemble small, heavy curlews with downward curving bills.
Cooperative bird
The whimbrel cooperated by coming into view on a slight slope beside the fence that surrounds the military base. We saw two of the birds, possibly three. One worked its way much closer to the road so we were able to see the stripe on the crown of its head. When it flew, its wing linings were dark underneath, not reddish as are those of the curlew. Besides the whimbrels, the pleasures of the day included black-bellied plover in striking spring plumage, with real black bellies instead of the sober winter garb to which we are accustomed. We also enjoyed seeing another species, dunlin, in breeding plumage. Their backs were thatched in bright rufous brown and their bellies were fashionably black.
Hummer news
After I reported last week's amazing hummingbird visitor, the story got better. Instead of one rare green violet-ear, there were two on the west side, and there is more ... they chased away a broad-billed hummingbird that tried to share their feeders. Broad-billeds are also Mexican hummers that are only found in this country in the southern part of Arizona. They are unusual visitors to South Texas.
Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi
resident, has studied birds of Texas since 1960.
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