Tuna Time in Texas

 As Cape Cod still runs through my veins, hearing “tuna time” I, of course, think of tuna, as in the fish; the really large fish that we once went to see being hauled in on a winter day in Chatham.  The small fishing boat was coated in ice, and the tuna, which weighed over 500 lbs. seemed clearly capable of tipping it over.  Just recently someone caught a 900 plus tuna off the Cape for some Tuna Reality show. Only trick was, there were no cameras on board at the time.  But I digress.

“Tuna” time in Texas doesn’t require you to be at sea, or to have an ice covered boat or a whale of a struggle with a huge fish.  Rather, “tunas” here refer to the magenta fruit that are ripening on the Prickly Pear as we speak.  You have no doubt seen them in pictures, and perhaps you know that they are loaded with Vit.C, calcium and phosphorous.  If you are a Texan, you might also know that, as of 1995, the Prickly Pear, Opuntia engelmanni   was chosen  the Texas State Plant.  It does have a zillion different uses and is said to have kept many a creature, including humans, from starving in tough times.

I have been reading about how to make a juice from them, but after reading about it, I don’t think I will chose this as a way to make up for my missing apple picking in Texas.   

You need to use some sort of tong to pick them off the plant, as being a cactus means nasty spines.  The ones you have to worry about aren’t the large obvious spines, but much smaller fine ones called “glochids” which dislodge easily and can go airborne  

ending up in your skin or yikes, eyes, where their barbed ends, like porcupine quills will embed them wherever they land.

Once you pick them, you mash and strain them through a pillowcase, toss out the pulp left behind and enjoy the juice added to lemonade.  On the Cape we used to make lemonade from the Staghorn Sumac in much the same way, minus the “lose your eyesight” glochids.  However, native cultures have been eating tunas for 1,000’s of years so maybe this web page was just into making it sound scarier than it is.

It turns out I have eaten Prickly Pear in a restaurant without knowing it.  The Spanish word for the pads of the Prickly pear is “napalito” and they were really yummy, sliced into strips and slightly tart atop a meal I had gotten. I have a jar of them in my cupboard for adding to a casserole someday.

The Prickly Pear, it turns out, is one of those plants where every part has a use for one thing or another.  A great book on Texas Plants is one called “Remarkable Plants of Texas” by Matt Turner and he goes on for pages about the myriad of ways this plant has been used through the ages.  Pads could make a pocket for steaming fish or be used as a source of stored water for all native animals.  The spines were used as dart tips to hunt birds, the mucilaginous mass in the pads mixed with turbid water could remove dirt by sinking it to the bottom and leaving the clear water on top, plus a lengthy list of medicinal uses are cataloged in his book.  So, one can see how it came to this place of honor as a Texas symbol.

And, just as an example of how we modern people have lost our ability to appreciate delayed gratification, there is a story in Turner’s book of the explorer, Cabeza de Vaca living among the coastal Indians.  It was winter and food was scarce but the Indians told him to cheer up, it would soon be tuna time.  Soon meaning in about 5 months time! 

So, even though I may not go gathering tunas on my own, I shall think highly of the plant every time I pass it on my walk and watch to see how long these tunas last before some animal with less aversion to glochids makes it their meal.  Meanwhile, a tuna fish sandwich anyone?

The Not-So-Constant Butterflies of 2013

Last year, I wrote a blog entitled “The Constancy of Butterflies”, for in 2012, my first year in Texas, that had been stunningly true.  From Jan. to Dec butterflies of one kind or the other had been present, and I was putting that check in the positive column of life in Texas. 

So far, in 2013 it has been a very different story.   The omnipresent Sulphurs have been anything but.  The Red Admirals that covered a plate of mashed banana’s last year could be counted on one hand this year.  The Pipevine Swallowtail is the one butterfly I can still see daily, but again, not in the numbers that were here before.  And we all know the dire predictions going out on the Monarch, so I shouldn’t get my hopes up for too many of them this coming fall.  I think I read the wintering site in Mexico has shrunk to some 3 acres, which is pretty appalling. 

I suppose it makes sense though, drought meant fewer host plants for the larvae of all kinds of insects.  Forest fires surely take out a whole food chain, and then, thanks to Monsanto and the like, not only are your windshields frighteningly clean as you cross country, but collateral damage means the plants around the field, the milkweeds the Monarchs must have, have died along with the “weeds” in the field.

Last year, the outside walls of our house were absolutely coated with hairy caterpillars; some of their shed “hairs” still cling to the stucco.  This year there were almost none.  I had had a “hands off” policy on my entire invasion of 6-legged neighbors.   Many locals were telling me I could spray for katydids, which were also present in plague-like proportions last year, but I had left well enough alone and this year, only a modest amount thrummed from the trees through the spring and now are silent.  Research had informed me they did no harm to the trees, nor were they interested in entering my home and really, pesticides didn’t effect them much, so the live and let live attitude was the right one to adopt.

I have babied my Blue Mist flowers, so loved by the butterflies, through the triple digit heat of summer, hoping that they would be here to provide nectar for the Queens and the Monarchs that fluttered around them last year like some nature commercial.  I guess I shall just have to wait and see now.  And here I am, a certified Monarch Watcher after an afternoon of training.  Perhaps this will be tantamount to becoming a Realtor right before the housing crash.  I hope not. 

OK, Miss Joyful Pat, thanks for the gloomy report.  Really, it was just meant to be an observation.  And perhaps rain will come in 2014 and the story will be a completely different one from this year.  It also is a cautionary tale of thinking you know what to expect in a new location after only one year of observing it.  I guess I could have titled this “Confessions of a Neophyte”.

I wonder what might be going on, insect-wise, in your part of the world?  Feel free to share, for the more that we do observe, neophytes or not, the more we all learn.  Bugs aplenty where you are?  Are the Monarchs passing through?  Grasshoppers and all the singing, chirping, rasping, rubbing insects of fall keeping you awake at night? I would love to know. 

Meanwhile, I will console myself knowing insects have been getting along on the planet for far longer than we have, and, by most predictions, would most likely still be around long after we are gone. And really, didn’t I just hear someone say, “Worry is a waste of the imagination”.  How true.  I shall do my part to appreciate and care for the world around me and leave the “worrying” at the feet of the only One who can do anything about it.

Bird Watching vs. BIRD Watching

--> Perhaps I have discussed this before; the difference between being a bird watcher; someone who keeps lists of birds seen, has the best equipment and is willing to travel great distances if a rare bird has been spotted vs. a bird watcher who is more interested in watching the bird, whatever kind it is, just to see what it is up to.   I fall into the latter camp.  I have always been drawn to animal behavior, any animal, and with birds being ever about, their behavior is most often on display.

This isn’t to imply I always understand what I am seeing, but I delight in the serendipity of happening to look at the right time to catch some odd little bit of bird life in progress.  Last week, I heard a chirping commotion and saw, rather startlingly, a group of about 12 young House sparrows hopping in and out of flowerpots that are on my deck.  They seemed to be squabbling over dusting rights, but although I know they love a dust bath, I just couldn’t imagine them trying to take one in a crowded pot.  Or that so many of them would be trying to crowd into pots filled with the very scratchy asparagus ferns. 

As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one drawn to this noisy and odd little party they were having.  A squirrel that likes to drape itself over the railing on hot days decided to hop over and have a look.  Then came a young female cardinal, followed by a white-winged dove.  What an audience these noisy sparrows had gathered!  They ignored all of us and just kept hopping in and out of the pots, chirping and being as excited as they could be about this little bit of sport.  It must have gone on for about a half hour, when they all decided to leave as quickly as they came.  A very entertaining bit of bird watching indeed. 

Since then, I have seen round depressions in the sandy area next to the garden which I am guessing might be a place they discovered to be more suitable for a dust bath.  With so little rain there is no lack of areas to dust up in, but as they had all looked like juveniles, it might have just taken them a while to figure that out.  Just like the young Titmice that like to perch on the hummingbird feeder thinking, “everyone else is doing it, why not me too”.

Then there was the other morning, when going out to feed the birds at sunrise, I saw the silhouette of a bird accompanied by the loudest cicada buzz.  I realized that it had just caught the unlucky insect and it wasn’t going to do down without a lot of complaining.  As I stayed to watch, a scrub jay flew by and IT had a cicada too.  Coming around the back of the house I couldn’t believe it, there was a third bird with a buzzing insect in its beak.  Speak about a breakfast “special” going on!  Unlikely I will ever see that again, but there it was, three times in a row. 

If ever you are looking for a wonderful read from a like-minded bird watcher, may I recommend my very, favorite of all, bird behavior books, “Private Lives of Garden Birds” by Calvin Simonds.  He writes with great humor and knowledge about the most common of birds, but it’s all focused on what they do, not where you might find them.  He even manages to write fondly about the English sparrow that most of us dread having as a resident in our yard.  I had to get my car fixed yesterday and I spent the entire time in the waiting room reading this book again and loving it.

Now, don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with checking the little box next to the birds name in your bird book index, and hoping to see something new.  It’s surely is exciting to get a chance to see any species new to you.  It is what I have loved about moving; even the most common bird can be uncommon to you if its not found in your area.  But I would encourage you to do a little “looking” whenever you can.  I have always said we can take a hike and be lost in our thoughts and see nothing, but if on that hike you decide to actually pay attention and look around you would be amazed at how much there is to see.  Anywhere.  City, forest, suburbia; if you look, you are bound to see something.   I took a short walk to a coffee shop in San Antonio while I waited for my car, and what did I see?

 A dragonfly wing, evidence of a meal recently eaten by some bird, and a sign that said, “Vampire facelifts”!  Who knew?  Bird watcher or bird watcher; it pays to look around.

Northern Mockingbird Part 2-Defender of Hearth and Home

 As much as the Mockingbird is known for its “many tongued mimicking” that we talked about in the last blog, it is also infamous for it’s pugnacious defense of not just it’s nesting site but also its wintering territory.    Considering they can have up to 4 broods in the summer, and then defend their food supply area in the winter, there is hardly a season when you won’t find the mockingbird sailing out of it’s tree to attack something or other. 

According to John Tveten in “The Birds of Texas”, one of the selling points on making the Mockingbird the State Bird in 1927 was that it was “…a singer of distinctive type, a fighter for the protection of it’s home, falling if need be, in it’s defense, like any true Texan…”  “Remember the Alamo” apparently extends to TX birds too!

Most Mockingbirds don’t take it that far, but it has been noted in “Audubon’s Field Guide to the Birds” that they can end up injuring themselves mortally, not when fighting another mockingbird, but when taking on their image in a car mirror or window.  “Man, that other mockingbird won’t quit attacking!”

 When I came house hunting in Texas , I parked my car near some cedars that must have housed a nest, for each time I came out, my mirrors and the side of the car were coated in Mockingbird droppings.  It was so frequent that I wondered if this poor bird would die of dehydration if he kept it up.  I should have covered the mirrors with a plastic bag saving myself a lot of clean up, and the mockingbird a lot of lost fluids.

Mockingbirds mount the fiercest defense when their offspring are in the fledgling stage, when other predators see them as the perfect mid-day snack.  This is where you get the pictures of mockingbirds attacking hawks, cats, dogs and people who come to close. 

The University of Florida did a study on this behavior and sent out intrepid students to go and touch the nest.  That didn’t go over well with the parent mockingbirds and so we have this iconic picture of a mockingbird attacking the “touchee” .  What they discovered was, it only took 60 seconds for the mockingbird to imprint this person on their memory.  The one being attacked in this picture is the one that had touched the nest while the people around her were left alone.  “Smart as crows” you might say.  The Cornell student who climbed up to crows’ nests to mark the eggs had his car attacked anytime he drove through Ithaca.  Not such “bird brains” after all!

Mockingbirds also have been seen doing this “wing-flash” strut, walking a few steps, then up with the wings, and then walking on.  No one knows why yet,: to flush insects? To scare rivals, yet none seem to be about.  Not all questions have answers.  They do spread their wings and tail feathers in flight to impress the ladies, but this seems different.

The other behavior I have yet to see but I am watching for, is when two males meet at their territory lines, and they start this sidestepping dance, hop, side step- bob heads; just their way of saying, “This far and no farther”.  

Fall is coming, and they will start a whole new round of chases and singing, as the pair of mockingbirds will be defending their winter food supply.  Females go after intruding females, males after males.  And as the mockingbird has become more and more , we all have a chance to keep on the lookout for this one. 

I don’t know about you, but for me there is so much more to bird watching than just noting what species you are seeing.  What are they doing and why?  That’s the more interesting question in my book.  And by the way, the mockingbird that was going through the “bird downloads” a week ago, is as silent as the grave now.  This is probably the third batch of mockingbirds this season!  My peaches don’t stand a chance.  Ok, enough about Mockingbirds…on to other things next time.

Northern Mockingbird- (Mimus polyglottos) “The Many Tongued Mimic”

If you have been graced with a mockingbird in your yard, you will know how apt the Indian name for this bird is:”Cencontlatolly”, the bird of 400 tongues.  Able to change his tune 87 times in 7 minutes, learning as many as 200 separate songs or calls in a lifetime, its Super Mimic!  Well, not actually, the Brown thrasher can learn up to 2,000 but still, all the mimicking species are pretty impressive. 

If you do have a mockingbird in your area, you may not always feel so “blessed”.  When in full ardor and trying to “get the girl”, they can ratchet up the volume pretty high. They can also take to night singing, often when the moon is bright, so, talented though it is, hearing these endless snatches of song can get a tad tiresome.

I always wondered why they did that. I know that singing is all about getting the girl, but I used to think; if you are so good you sound just like a cardinal or a titmouse, why aren’t you always reeling in the wrong girl?  Ah, but of course, the real species aren’t so easily fooled.  And now that you think of it, neither am I.  Although they will catch you momentarily thinking you are hearing one bird, say a Carolina wren, but then as I start to look for it, wait, it’s a Cardinal, then a few snatches of song later it’s a Blue jay.  That’s when I know, it’s a Mockingbird and so do the females of all those species. 

But still, I wondered why; what edge does this give them in impressing the ladies?  Well, whenever I have bird queries, the place to go is the Cornell Ornithological website, (http://www.birds.cornell.edu) and so I did.  And it turns out that the male with the most impressive song list gets the girl.  They point out that, as mockingbirds are continually adding to their repertoire, for that matter, each year they may only use between 40-60% of last years playlist, the male with the most downloaded tunes, as it were, shows that he has been around a while.  Which implies he is a survivor, and has a good food source and street smarts and wouldn’t you want to pass that along to the next generation? Yes you would, so the females are more drawn to that male. 

Ergo, the more “songs” you know and the louder you sing them, the more likely you are to find a mate.  Now, here is another thing to know, mockingbirds almost always have several broods each summer.  By listening you can tell when the dating season is in full swing, versus the nesting season.  The male may start singing low in the bushes in early spring, but as the days go on, he climbs to greater heights and sings louder and louder.  Once the female has chosen him and nesting begins, then, for the sake of safety of the nest, he pipes down. 

 You see him now, but the incessant mimicry has stopped.   Only to start up again perhaps 6 weeks later as a second brood is considered.

Which is what my mockingbird in my neighborhood is doing right now.  Its what inspired this blog.  I could have sworn I heard an Eastern Blue Jay, which although they are in Texas, are not in my neighborhood.  But in a few minutes that jay became a titmouse, and then a wren and I thought, ah it’s a mockingbird.  Now, each day when I walk the dog, I am treated to an aviary worth of song, but I shall make a point of listening to when that lessens and I can begin anticipating baby mockingbirds.

Their singing is only one part of their personality, for they are also infamous in their defense of hearth and home. But that is for another blog, which we shall return to as soon as time permits.  Meanwhile, listen in to the mimic in your neighborhood; see how many bird songs your mocker has downloaded from the bird app.  And, if you are so inclined, and can make some whistling sound of your own, repeat it often and see if it becomes part of his repertoire.  My favorite story of this sort of thing is the mockingbird that, according to Arnold Miller, joined the National Symphony Orchestra as it performed “Peter and the Wolf”.  And what part did it take?  Why, the flute of course, which is imitating the bird in the story. Wonderful!  Isn’t nature grand, it never ceases to entertain!