Rio Grande Valley Wildlife

By STEVE SINCLAIR

Steves@valleystar.com

956-430-3750

If you’ve ever had trouble identifying ducks, there’s no mistaking the northern shoveler with it’s distinctive bill shaped like, well, a shovel.

No other ducks has that kind of bill. But there is a purpose for that outrageous bill. It’s used to filter food from water, much the same as a pelican.

The bill is about 2 1/2 inches long and has about 110 fine projections along the edges for straining food from water, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology web site.

Northern shovelers, along with several other kinds of ducks, are winter migrants to the Rio Grande Valley. The rest of the year, they breed in the western half of the United States, including Alaska and Canada.

They are among the pothole ducks because they feed in prairie potholes or marshes, dining on minute aquatic animals that are strained through the bill. They will also eat seeds and aquatic plants.

Northern shovelers also belong to the group of dabbling ducks, which include northern pintail, gadwall, mallard, American wigeon, cinnamon teal, green-winged teal and blue-winged teal — all of which can be found in the Valley during the cold months.

The other group, diving ducks, include canvasback, redhead, ring-necked, greater and lesser scaup, common elder, Harlequin, bufflehead, goldeneye, hooded merganser, red-breasted merganser, common merganser, ruddy duck and black-bellied whistling duck.

There’s a simple way to tell if the duck is a diver or dabbler. If the duck’s back end bobs like a cork while feeding, it’s a dabbler.

Mating pairs of northern shovelers form up in the winter and their bonding continues during migration. Males remain with females during incubation.

Females choose nesting sites and nests are generally shallow depressions made of grasses lined with down.

Females lay between nine and 23 eggs with incubation lasting 23 to 28 days.

A few hours after hatching, the ducks are able to swim (after all, they are ducks) where they can forage immediately. Ducklings tend to stay near cover where there is security.

They fledge in 52 to 66 days.

Northern shovelers are among the first ducks to arrive in the Valley.

By STEVE SINCLAIR

The caracara was a king among paupers. It was striking, elegant and a welcomed discovery.

Since, caracaras have become one of my favorite raptors.

They are also one of, if not the most, unusual raptor in the Rio Grande Valley.

For one thing, they will either predate or eat carrion. For another, they have longer legs than other area raptors and spend a good deal of their time on the ground. Thirdly, they have the most intriguing sound of all raptors. They tilt their head back and make a strange rattling sound. That noise is how they got their name.

Although they slightly resemble a bald eagle, they are actually falcons. But they also have bare faces like that of vultures, which allows them to stay relatively clean as they eat carrion.

Caracaras are found in the Valley, Coastal Bend, Hill Country, southern Arizona and a small pocket of Florida in the United States. They are also found throughout Mexico, Central America and northern part of South America.

Caracaras construct stick nests in trees, yuccas, cactus or on the ground. Females lay two to three eggs. Incubation lasts 28 to 32 days. Fledging takes three months, but young birds will often stay with their parents for extended periods.

Diets consist of just about anything they can swallow — fish, eggs, insects, worms, eggs, crabs, reptiles, amphibians, small mammals and, of course, carrion.

Caracaras are also thiefs. Several times I’ve seen them steal fish from ospreys and compete with turkey and black vultures for carrion.

For the most part, you don’t think of birds of prey as flocking birds, but a friend told me she once saw 12 caracaras dining on a feral hog carcass in the eastern part of Cameron County.

Despite loss of habitat, the caracara population in the United States appears stable.

By STEVE SINCLAIR

According to Fermata, a nature-based company out of Austin, the Lower Valley is home to 78 odonata (dragonflies and damselflies).

That number, according to the company, represents 35 percent of the species found in Texas and 14 percent of those found in the entire country. And we’re only talking about four counties.

What makes those numbers even more remarkable is the Lower Valley doesn’t have the number of water habitats where odonata breed because of our periodic droughts and absence of streams.

It’s also possible there are dragonflies and damselflies that are unique in the Valley because of our tropical climate.

What, you may ask, is the difference between a dragonfly and damselfly?

There are several differences, but the most obvious is dragonflies hold their wings outstretched when perched and damselflies hold wings by their sides.

But, they’re other differences. For instance, the eyes of damselflies are separated but not so with dragonflies. Also, dragonflies are usually much larger.

Female dragonflies lay eggs on aquatic plants or they are simply dropped into the water.

Dragonflies go through three stages — egg, nymph (living just below the water) and adult. Between the nymph and adult stages, the dragonfly changes from an underwater predator to an aerial assassin.

Once they reach the adult stage, it’s a race against time because they only live about two months. So, finding a mate quickly is a priority.

Mating is done during flight and females then look for a suitable place to deposit eggs and the process unfolds again.

Damselflies also go through the same three-stage life cycle — egg, nymph and adult.

One difference is that female damselflies lay eggs on submerged vegetation.

Depending on the species, damselfly adults can live from several weeks to several months.

So, what’s the appeal of spotting and identifying dragonflies and damselflies?

Part of it is color. Dragonflies, for example, can range from rose to Kelly green to French Blue. They can also have horizontal striping on their wings.

Damselflies are also colorful, ranging from different shades of blue to reddish orange to yellow.

The best places to view these winged insects are on or near water features, including ponds, resacas, flooded wetlands and even fountains.

Hoods in the Valley

By STEVE SINCLAIR

Many years ago, someone once told there is a truism about birding — the farther south you go the prettier the birds get.

In some ways, that’s true. More so with yearend birds than migrants.

A good example is the hooded oriole. It’s a bird that varies from orange to gold to yellow, depending on the location. But no matter which hue it takes, the hooded oriole is a Rio Grande Valley treasure.

The hooded oriole breeds in the Valley and can be found in a variety of habitats, urban and rural.

Hooded orioles are found from South Texas westward to the San Francisco Bay area of California, with the heaviest concentration in southern Arizona.

A recent experience with a hooded oriole was not a pleasurable one.

Several of us were observing a female at Sabal Palm Audubon Center and Sanctuary in Brownsville. The oriole was feeding two chicks — a hooded oriole and a brown cowbird.

The cowbird chick was larger and more aggressive, grabbing food meant for the baby oriole.

It’s been suggested that even though hooded orioles are expanding their ranges, their numbers are dwindling in the Valley because of cowbird nest parasitism.

The orioles are masters at building nests. When suspended from palm leaves, the female punches holes in the leaf from below and pushes the fibers through, sewing the nest to the leaf, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Females, which are different from males, produce two broods a year and on rare occasions, three broods. Clutches range from three to five eggs.

Incubation lasts 12 to 14 days and the chicks fledge in about two weeks.

Primarily insect eaters, they are regular visitors at feeders and will even come to a hummingbird feeder.

There’s another oriole that also lives in the Lower Valley and the two can be confused. The male Altamira oriole is larger, has a thicker bill and has a distinctive orange shoulder patch. They may share the same habitat.

Shriver got the binoculars from the boat and, sure enough, it was a greater flamingo.

How rare is it to see a greater flamingo in the Rio Grande Valley? According to the Texas Birds Records Committee, only seven sightings of a greater flamingo have been documented in Texas.

The flamingo was seen 1.1 miles south, southeast of Green Island about 1.5 miles from South Padre Island.

Shriver reported the bird to biologist Jena Morris who eventually posted the sighting on the Web. In June, apparently the same greater flamingo was seen again by a boater between Port Mansfield and Arroyo City.

“I saw it just standing there,” Shriver recalled, “so we came back, turned off the motor and drifted close enough to get pictures.

“My first thought was that someone was playing games. Who put the plastic flamingo there?

“I have seen them in other countries and it was as large a flamingo as I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Shriver said he and Glass drifted about 15 minutes, getting as close as 75 yards to the bird. They watched it for another 15 minutes.

He said it appeared the bird was simply resting.

According to the Field Guide to North American Birds, greater flamingos are found in Caribbean countries, northern South America and Galagapos Islands.

Every few years, one is spotted in the Valley, including the Laguna Atascosa and Bahia Grande, where they feed on crustaceans.

Mark Conway, president of the Arroyo Colorado Audubon Society, said he was not surprised to hear about the report.

“The ones that show up here invariably show up as single birds,” he said. “They’re going through post-breeding dispersal. After breeding, they wander a little bit.”

He believes the greater flamingo is probably from Mexico or Central America rather than one of the Caribbean islands.

Conway does not think the sighting is an indication flamingos are expanding their range northward.

“No, not unless they stay and breed, then you have a whole different situation,” he said. “People will see it for awhile and then it will disappear. It probably will return to its home territory.”

Conway said sometimes people see what they think are flamingos, but they are actually roseate spoonbills. Though both are pink, they have different bills. Spoonbills have spatula-like bills, and flamingos have black-tipped curved bills.

Flamingos also have much longer necks.

Shriver said that since his original sighting, he has not seen the bird again.

By STEVE SINCLAIR

It’s a credit to bobcats’ ability to adapt that they have been around for so long. The first bobcat was documented 2.5 million years ago and they show no signs of disappearing anytime soon.

Why should they? They have a lot going for them — great sense of smell, excellent hearing, terrific eyesight, they are fast, can climb trees and are one of the most cunning animals in the wild.

Bobcats are fairly common in the Rio Grande Valley, even though you may have never seen one.

Weighing 30 pounds and less, they are stealthy predators who survive in a variety of habitats. With the exception of the grasslands of the plains, they are found throughout the United States.

In the Valley, bobcats can look a bit different than other parts of the country. Here, they are likely to have spots, although some are solid brown. Over most of the country, their coats are a solid tan.

Their diet consists mainly of small mammals and birds, according to the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Only rarely will they kill a deer.

Two incidents come to mind about watching bobcats hunt.

I had taken a trail to a small pond in the eastern part of Cameron County and on my way back, I spotted a large lump to my right. Strange, I thought, I didn’t remember seeing it before.

On closer inspection, I could see it was a bobcat trying to crawl under a log to catch a rabbit or mouse.

The cat was so engrossed with the hunt it never noticed I was standing behind it just a few feet away.

As I began fiddling with my camera, the bobcat heard the noise and made good its getaway. A couple of minutes later, a cotton-tail rabbit emerged from underneath the log and scampered into the brush.

The second incident also happened in Cameron County, but this time I was in car. I spotted a bobcat stalking a roadrunner a little past sunset.

But what made this incident so unique was that the roadrunner was absolutely frozen in fear.

The roadrunner was fully aware it was being stalked and probably could have flown to a tree (yes, roadrunners can fly a little) or make a dash for freedom. But the bird was unable to move.

Fortunately for the roadrunner, the presence of my car eventually made the bobcat too nervous and it headed into the woods.

Somewhere, there is a rabbit and roadrunner that owe me a great debt of gratitude.