By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
The early morning is my favorite time of day, especially in the crisp, clear mid-winter.
I love watching the light rise in the eastern sky, seeing the luminous blue arching above me and the bright wash of colors on the horizon. I love the promise inherent in the beginning of the new day.
On Saturday morning, I headed down to the Rincon Del Diablo before sunrise, so I could watch the golden light spill over the carrizo hedge along the San Felipe Creek and listen to the dawn chorus.
I am still concerned about the numbers of birds I’m observing, and I’ve been trying to keep accurate counts every time I go into the field, and the numbers continue to seem smaller than they have been in years past.
I saw Great-tailed Grackles, but most of them were flying overhead, on their way to easier pickings farther inside Del Rio.
The female Northern Flicker was still in the Rincon also. On Saturday, she was high in a pecan tree, catching the first warming rays of the new day’s sun.
I stayed in the Rincon for about half an hour, then moved upstream to an area of the creek near the Casa De La Cultura.
There, I found a male Common Yellowthroat foraging along the very edge of the creek, popping in and out of the dense carrizo thickets where the thick stands of vegetation meet the water.
Common Yellowthroats are pretty curious, so they’re easy to “pish” out of their hiding spots and into the open, but they’re also really small and fast moving so they can be easily overlooked.
The male yellowthroat is easily identified by his rakish black mask, but the mask is not as crisp and well-defined in younger birds. The female is olive and yellow, with no distinctive markings.
I also found a pair of Couch’s Kingbirds perching at the tops of trees in the area, keeping an eye out for predators.
I was glad to see the kingbirds. The Couch’s Kingbirds are common year-round residents along our creek, but Mike and I didn’t see any while we were doing the Christmas Count in December, and it was a little concerning to us.
The kingbirds seem to be back, though, and I was happy to see them.
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Contact the author at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com
