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with Phyllis Yochem
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Tuesday, July 11, 2000
The search continues for the nutcracker at the golf course
Couch's kingbirds, kiskadees, scissor-tailed flycatchers spotted at 7th hole; no sign of the elusive nutcracker
A golfer, Clarence Shaw, called to say that he had seen a Clark's nutcracker on the seventh hole of the Alice Municipal Golf Course. Well! I have tried to quit saying, "impossible.'' So I said, "Tell me about it.''
He described a gray, black and white bird, about as big as a female grackle. So far, so good.
"It was being chased by a kiskadee,'' he continued. He had looked it up in a field guide and it looked exactly like the picture. Impossible, but tantalizing.
"If you see it again, call me right back,'' I said. He did.
The Third Edition of the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America says the nutcrackers, every 10 to 20 years, come out of their core range into desert and lowland areas.
A Clark's nutcracker is a crowlike bird of western mountains. In Harry C. Oberholser's "The Bird Life of Texas,'' it rates a whole page picture by Louis Fuertes. A list of places into which it has been spotted include Rockport. One was seen there in 1969, from Sept. 28-Oct. 1, by Elizabeth Henze (a friend of Connie Hagar, et al.).
Off to Alice
I found a couple who were willing to go with me to investigate the Alice report. Barbara Olsen, membership chairman of the Audubon Outdoor Club, is a longtime birder who finally influenced her husband Art, a golfer by choice, to become a birder. They said I called at just the right time.
Soon we were on the back road to Alice. There, with the help of a kind young man on a large, powerful street repairing machine, we quickly found the Municipal Golf course. Shaw was no longer there, but had left requests that Sonny Aguilar who was in charge of the golf shop, take care of us and help us if possible.
The morning was hot but lovely. Many white-winged doves filled the air with insistent cries of "who cooks for you all?'' A thriving population of golden-fronted woodpeckers yodeled and pursued their undulating ways from one mesquite tree to another.
Herons on patrol
We approached the 7th hole carefully so as not to frighten any nutcrackers away. Art kept us aware of golf course protocol and we tried to behave appropriately, not making loud noises when a golfing party approached. We crept to the edge of a small pond and there, at water's edge, a green heron was creeping too. His object was clearly small fish. His mate, also stalking, covered his flank.
We examined the willow tree. Sheltering in its branches were a Couch's kingbird and two courting neotropic cormorants. Mourning and white-winged doves were everywhere. After a while a great kiskadee flew in, then another, both shouting "kiskadee!'' A scissor-tailed flycatcher claimed the treetop and beneath him northern cardinals clicked busily. On a hillock beyond the pond, a male bronzed cowbird put on a great, puffed-up, hovering dance for an indifferent lady bird.
We stayed as long as we could, enjoying every minute, but whatever nutcrackers were about must by then have been effectively dispatched by the kiskadees.
Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi
resident, has studied birds of Texas since 1960.
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