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Birdwatching
with Phyllis Yochem
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Tuesday, December 19, 2000
A virtual Christmas card paints a picture of a winter birding scene
Imagine you are receiving this column the old-fashioned way, by snail mail, but with a modern-day twist. It is enclosed in a dark green envelope and has a faint odor of Maine wood balsam. On the postage stamp in the upper right hand corner of the envelope is the face of a bald, white-bearded man (Frederick Law Olmested).
Your name is written on the envelope, followed by your address. My name and address appears on a slick, red sticker attached to the back of the envelope.
Open it. This is your virtual Christmas card, the only kind I send. As soon as I get it in the mail, I am off to do Christmas Bird Counts.
A virtual view
Inside the envelope is a virtual snow scene that tastes of spearmint, little white and silver flakes of different shapes and sizes. On the snow-white page is a snow-white whooping crane (an albino, made up for this card), visible because he stands before a tall Christmas tree. On the branch behind his head is a male cardinal, singing. Can you hear him? He comes from Blucher Park, so his accent is slightly mockingbird. He is saying, "Merry Christmas, merry Christmas, merry, merry, merry Christmas...(your name)."
The tree this year is a huge mulberry that stands in the arroyo behind the house in which we lived while our house had its plumbing repaired. Besides the cardinal, in its branches are two more red birds - a scarlet tanager and a summer tanager. The two came during spring migration. Above the crane, sharing a hummingbird feeder, are a pert little greenish orange-crowned warbler and a large hummingbird, a buff-breasted. On the ground are five handsome white-winged doves.
Greetings hovering above
Open the card. The scene inside is different. Here it is summer in the desert of Big Bend National Park. Whoever sits on the rustic wooden bench here beside a curving path will look out, through the huge rock frame they call "The Window," at the blue and misty valley, and beyond into infinity.
Beside the bench is an agave with a great asparagus bloom. Around it, butterflies are working, but since I don't do butterflies, I don't know what kind. The hummingbird hovering above its flower is a greenish female, with large white spots on her tail. The smell here is pinyon, bitter sweet and spicy. A singing cactus wren, that is industrious and companionable, looks out from behind a stickery bush.
Beneath the chaparral up slope a group of brownish birds, dark-eyed juncos, work at finding edible seeds along the path.
The message has been printed in silver blue by a master calligrapher and says, "May you have a peaceful and joyful Christmas blessed with love. May birds fly before you down a shady path."
Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi
resident, has studied birds of Texas since 1960.
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