Not Knowing Who to Expect

The trick of changing geographical locations so completely, is that I am pretty much in the dark as far as who to expect, bird wise, to show up at the feeder, or in the bushes, on any given day. After living on the Cape for more than a decade, I could anticipate the arrival of the “first” of this or that species. Noting when the Juncos would first arrive in winter and when they would, almost overnight, decide to leave. A friend has told me that Red-wing blackbirds are in the marshes already, our first sign of spring in that latitude.

But here in TX, I am clueless. I have had robins and cedar wax wings in my neighborhood, and I assumed perhaps they wintered here. But then I was at a nature center where they were calling us out of a meeting just to see the amazing group of 20 or so robins in a nearby tree. So my ho-hum response to the robins in my neighborhood should have been one of more enthusiasm for maybe they only pass through this area on their way to wormier pastures. And of course, I would never want to be a show off and say we had a roost of 8,000 robins on the Cape one winter. It would have been bad form.

I tried checking out a book I got on Western Birds, only to show another deficiency in my knowledge base. Raise your hand if you think of Texas as being in the West. I thought it WAS the West. Not according to the Peterson Field Guide Series. Yes, a small corner of TX is included, but otherwise I guess I would find the who’s who of Texas birds in a southern book. In the small corner of Texas the book does cover, it says Cedar Waxwings are occasionally present in winter. Again, it seems I should have lept about more enthusiastically when I saw them.

On Feb 6th a hummingbird came buzzing by my head. Wow, was it an early scout, or do some over-winter here? It has gotten pretty chilly so they would have to be pretty hardy to survive. I was under the impression that there may be zillions of hummingbirds here, and in the summer maybe there will be. However, it seems, from what I can glean from this book, that there may only be two types. The Black-chinned hummingbird and the Ruby Throated Hummingbird that is said to arrive around March. Googling Black Chinned ones, I see that they arrive before the Ruby Throated. Perhaps then, this was an early scout, or a hardy one that waited out winter. Either way, I did know to get excited about that and wondered if it was time to stir up some sugar water.

And this morning, the first flock of ducks I’ve seen, flew overhead. They had longish necks and in my uber enthusiastic way I jumped to the exciting conclusion that they might be Whistling ducks. Black Bellied Whistling ducks are said to be in this part of TX but the book didn’t say when they were here. In the gray light of morning, and the huge gap in my knowledge here, I of course couldn’t know.

Herein lies the rub. When I was on the Cape, I wrote this blog to share with you what I knew about what I was seeing there. However, here in Texas it seems I will more often be writing about what I don’t know. And who knows, perhaps there is a reader out there who knows all about Texas birds and other flora and fauna here and would like to chime in. Or take over. In the meantime though, with your patience, I will just plod along, sharing what I am learning and what I have yet to learn. Occasionally, there might be something useful, such as , if you want a bird book on TX don’t buy the one on Western Birds! Till later then…