Dream comes true for birding festival participant

November 11, 2010 9:59 PM

By FERNANDO DEL VALLE
fernandodv@valleystar.com
956-430-6278

BROWNSVILLE — For about 20 years, Patricia Wing has been on the trail of the green jay.
“Two of the things I want to do in my life is go to Australia and see a green jay,” Wing, a retired editor who lives near Santa Fe, N.M., said Thursday morning. “Some people want to have a convertible. I want to see a green jay.”
At the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, Wing’s dream came true.
Thursday, she was part of a field trip to the Nature Conservancy of Texas’ Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve near the banks of the Rio Grande.
As dawn broke, field guide Cole Wolf craned his neck and puckered his lips.
“Pss, pss, pss,” he called into the brush.
“It’s called pishing,” Wolf said. “It’s to draw birds out. They come out to hear the noise.”
Wing aimed her binoculars into the tree tops to get a glimpse of the green jay.
“They don’t care that they’re beautiful,” she said. “They’re just sassy.”
Since it began in 1994, the festival has grown into one of the largest birding events in the country. Today, it draws visitors from across the United States to this region that lies along a main migratory flyway, attracting about 500 bird species, the largest number documented in the United States.
“What’s attractive is there are a number of birds seen in Deep South Texas that are found no where else in the United States,” Kim Eckert, the field trip’s leader from Duluth, Minn., said.
Along the border wall that winds across a levee, the 1,034-acre preserve is one of two protected palm forests in the United States, refuge manager Maxwell Pons said.
The field trip marked the first time the preserve opened to the festival’s birders, Eckert said.
“This particular preserve is relatively new and not open to the birding public, and that’s the attraction,” Eckert said.
The coos of a screech owl called from a CD player that dangled from Eckert’s belt.
“That often attracts the curiosity of small birds,” he said.
Sabal palms jut across stretches of wetland that lure wildlife to the preserve.
“There’s a ringed kingfisher flying over the pond near the end! There’s a kiskadee chasing him,” Wolf called out to the birders.
“I can see him in the scope,” said Dee Kuder, who works at a fishing resort in Crane Lake, Minn. “Wow! He’s got a big beak.”
Guides like Wolf help make the festival one of the best in the country, Wing said.
“It’s marvelous that they’re here,” she said. “They’re teaching about the characteristics of the birds. They spot them for you. Each bird has its own markers. It’s a very complex science and you’re learning.”
Eckert pointed to a long-billed thrasher that fluttered in the brush.
“There he is just below the palm!” he called out. “This is one of those birds you want to see — a South Texas specialty.”
Mike McGinty, a retired military officer from Hilton Head, S.C., pulled out his notebook to add the bird to his life list, the long roster that documents the species he has seen in his treks across North America.
“It’s not just the birds,” said his wife Karen, a retired software engineer. “For me, it’s enjoyable to go out into the environment that the bird’s in. It’s about being outdoors with people who enjoy it, too.”