You can see them at dawn or dusk, large flocks of American White Pelicans, swooping down to Mitchell Lake. Large ungainly birds that skim over the water and settle gracefully. They migrate north to the Canadian border in Spring, but every Fall they return to this lake in the South Texas Plains. They are peaceful and gregarious birds, floating serenely in large groups, sometimes a hundred or more. They have a habit of sitting in a long row on the windbreak barrier at the northern most edge of Mitchell Lake, where the shoreline is a long dyke lined with Mesquite and Huisache. The Pelicans are amusing to watch. One bird will swim up to the barrier and try to clamber onto it, and instead of shoving and jostling, the others move rather good-naturedly to accommodate the newcomer. When it gets too crowded one of them will get off into the water. It is like musical chairs. The males are easily identified in Spring by the growths protruding from their bills. They sit and preen and clean their feathers, and yawn a lot. I have wasted a lot of time watching Pelicans.
Mitchell Lake is one of the treasures of San Antonio. Originally created as a series of sewage settlement basins, it is a migratory stop on the Central Flyway, that vast and mysterious areal highway over which birds fly every season. From the Gulf Coast and onwards to Canada in Spring, and then the return in Fall. Bexar county and San Antonio sit smack on this highway. It teems with waterfowl twice every year. And within a span of a few weeks, the basins and wetlands of Mitchell Lake are crowded with Stilts, Sandpipers, Yellowlegs, Dowitchers, Phalaropes, Teals, Widgeons, Loons, Grebes, Shovelers, Ibises, and Spoonbills. A long list of waterfowl, shorebirds, and waders, busily feeding or wading in groups, occasionally breaking out into a squabble, but by and large a peaceable and gregarious lot. Up above, flocks of egrets, cormorants and herons return to their roost at dusk. And if you are a good enough birder you can identify flocks of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, slender almost goose-like, as they swoop over the basins to perch in trees. The Whistling-duck is a very odd duck and very pretty. The big advantage with wetland birds is that they move very little, and rather slowly. So they can provide hours of amusement if you have a decent spotting-scope and patience. Each species has its own idiosyncrasies that bear observing.
Not all birds are as obliging as wetland birds. Songbirds certainly are not. During the day if you walk along the dykes separating the basins trying to spot warblers, you can run into a Red-eared slider, that ubiquitous pond turtle, as it ponderously moves from one basin to the next. Or encounter a rattlesnake sunning itself. Or step into the scat of raccoons or feral pigs. You must be careful to look at the ground even as you gape into the skies. In the trees and shrubs that line the dykes you can see the brilliant flash of the Vermillion flycatcher and Yellow-rumped Warblers as these are common. But more difficult to spot are tiny birds like Kinglets, or Gnatcatchers, and the busy wood warblers like the Black-throated Green warbler. American Pipits are more obliging as they are on the ground bobbing their tails up and down. And soaring up and down in their peculiar fashion are the graceful Scissor-tailed flycatchers. Look more carefully and you may see a Crested Caracara, and maybe an Osprey taking fish.
On nights, if you are fortunate enough to get access to the Lake, you can see the constellations wheeling overhead. Scorpio, most beautiful, hangs over the Southern sky with the Red-giant Antares glowing orange. During rainy years, in this otherwise arid scrub land, you can hear the sonorous calls of crickets and katydids. In the basins that are partially filled, the green treefrog chorus can be a deafening "Quank! Quank!" interspersed with the clicking chorus of cricket frogs or the deep "Bawooom! Bawooom!" of bullfrogs. Mitchell Lake is one of my field research sites. In good years I will be there at night with my microphones and recorders collecting frog chorus recordings. But like most parts of the South Texas Plains, it is arid, brush country with it's telltale flora of Husiache, Mesquite, Hackberry, Persimmon, and thorny shrubs. The leaves are small, and most trees and shrubs are short and dense, giving the name "brushland".
If you stand at certain places along the dykes, you can see alternating bands of green and blue where the dykes separate the basins and the lake. It is a shallow horizon that dazzles blue and emerald as it rushes swiftly upwards to meet the Texas sky. In its distinctive flora and fauna, this land is unique. Every living thing here is superbly adapted to its conditions. You still your mind and observe. Observe. On cloudless days in October, you can stand and watch the teeming ponds and basins, and the graceful pelicans on the lake. The sun slants downwards. You look up and close your eyes, and feel the cool wind from the lake whispering through the trees, shrubs, and grass. You open your eyes and look around. You find that you are in harmony with all that is around you. You are under a warm Texan sun.
Mitchell Lake: http://tx.audubon.org/Mitchell.html
No comments:
Post a Comment