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with Phyllis Yochem
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Tuesday, May 16, 2000
Green violet-ear hummingbird, a rare visitor, reappears after five years
Families added feeders, misters to yards overlooking Nueces River to attract birds
In a spring full of surprises, another stranger has turned up here, this time a hummingbird. Before the excitement had died down from the appearance of a rare mangrove cuckoo, I received a phone call from Jimmy Swartz. "Did you hear about our hummingbird?" he asked, telling me about a rare visitor from Mexico, a green violet-ear hummingbird. It was alternating between the feeders at the Swartz family house and those of their neighbors, Vicki and Joel Simon.
These birders live several houses apart in the best birding location in Corpus Christi, a wooded embankment overlooking the Nueces River, with a view of Hazel Bazemore County Park and the Welder Ranch. Jimmy and Patty Swartz and their son Glenn, who is also a talented birder, have lived there many years. They selected the location before becoming birders. More recent arrivals, the Simons looked this area over carefully before deciding where their home would be.
Many feeders and bird amenities make both yards hospitable and attractive to birds. I caught up with the hummer at the Simons' house. The view from the Simons' window was a veritable hummer convention. Tiny, speedy jewel bodies rushed back and forth, hovering a minute by a feeder, then rushing on for a brief spar with a competitor. A fine mist spray in the background against a leafy pattern of mesquite branches was a favorite spot, with birds flying in and out of the wet, some stopping to raise wings and pivot in the water. I asked Vicki how she had arranged the mister.
"I sell them," she replied. Of course. The Simons own and operate Nature's Bird, a store that sells items to attract birds, along with birding equipment.
The Checklist of the Birds of Texas, published by the Texas Ornithological Society, says the green violet-ear is a rare visitor, usually in late spring or summer, to the Lower Rio Grande Valley, the eastern edge of the Edwards Plateau, and the upper part of the coastal plain. The bird is known to have nomadic tendencies, often moving from where it nests, at high altitudes in Mexico, to lower slopes. In 1989, one was recorded in Sinton. There is also a previous record of the bird in the area it is now visiting, on May 6, 1995.
The green violet-ear is a jumbo-size hummingbird, measuring about 4 1/2 inches. Its size is comparable to that of the buff-breasted hummer, another Mexican bird we have become accustomed to seeing here fairly often in the last few years. It looks outsize in the company of our usual migrants, ruby-throated, black-chinned and rufous, all of which are 3 1/4 inches long. Its wingbeats are noticeably slower than those of the small birds.
It is a green bird with violet ear patches and touches of violet-blue on the chest. Its heavy, square, bluish tail has a broad, black subterminal band. The sexes are similar but females are duller in color. Oak woods and clearings in the highlands of Mexico, Jalisco to San Luis Potosi and south, are its preferred habitat.
Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi
resident, has studied birds of Texas since 1960.
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