Birders try for a glimpse of spring migration

Bikers and birders converged on South Padre Island over the weekend.

The bikers were there for the Beach-N-Biker Fest. Birders wanted a glimpse of the spring migration of birds returning from Mexico and Central and South America.

Bikers Dan Puente and Noel Peña stood at the entrance to the South Padre Island Convention Centre on Saturday watching motorcyclists riding into the parking lot.

Puente didn't think the bike festival was a problem for birders, saying it was a positive thing to have both groups of people on the Island at the same time.

The birders made the best of the situation.

They said it wasn't the noise of the motorcycles that kept them from seeing birds. Some said it was the lack of access to the convention center parking lot, where the bikers were staging. That's the lot the birders would have used to get to a nature trail boardwalk.

"It (Beach-N-Biker Fest) isn't affecting the birds," Port Isabel resident Paul Wentzel said. "It's affecting our ability to see the birds."

The Beach-N-Biker Fest began Thursday and was scheduled to continue through today, the same weekend that a large group of migratory birds was landing on the Island, birding guide Kim Garwood said.

The motorcycle festival was held at the SPI Convention Centre, and access to the parking lot was limited to motorcycles Saturday.
Paonia, Colo., resident Mike Furcolow said he didn't mind not being able to bird-watch at the convention center.

"We have other places to go, there's so much habitation here," Furcolow said. "If they need that area, we can go elsewhere. There's so much variation and other places to go, it's not like that's the only spot."

Furcolow said the main issue he worried about was booking a hotel room on the Island.

The boardwalk area behind the convention center that extends over the Laguna Madre is one of the best bird-watching spots in the area, Mission resident Mary Ann Scharoun said.

Scharoun said she and her husband, Richard, are Winter Texans and stay in Mission in April specifically to bird-watch at the nature trails behind the convention center.

"If we can't do that, it's a big disappointment," she said.

Motorists were required to park about half a mile away for a $3 fee, and some birders, such as Richard Scharoun, could not walk that far, he said.

"Most birders are older people, and they don't want to or can't walk half a mile," Scharoun said.

Many birders looked for birds on other parts of the Island.

The Scharouns, Wentzel and a group of bird-watchers gathered at a fenced-off area on Sheepshead Street.

Mary Ann Scharoun said if officials had designated a small portion of the parking lot for bird-watchers, it would have allowed more people to view the migrating birds.

"I have people here from New York, Chicago, California, to see the birds and they're not very happy," Garwood said. "If they want ecotourists to keep coming to the Island, they mainly come for spring migration."

Garwood suggested scheduling the motorcycle festival during a weekend other than during spring migration, which usually lasts until late April.

Garwood planned to take the group of six birders she was guiding to the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in hopes of bird watching in a quieter environment, even though more birds land on the Island than at the refuge, she said.

Some did decide to make the walk to the convention center nature trails Saturday.

"We need the exercise anyway," Don Hartman said with a laugh.

Hartman said the wind affected the birds - not the noise from motorcycles.

Hartman's wife, Jonay, looked at a mockingbird and a coach whip snake with Alice Caudill, a biker who walked toward the nature trail area Saturday.

"We heard the birds, so we knew that's what they were doing," Caudill said. " We're just taking a nature walk and enjoying it. We have four acres in Lyford, so we watch the birds out there all the time."