Tuesday, March 6, 2001

Rare bluebird sighting brings local birders happiness

View of five females of mountain type is one of only a few recorded in past 20 years

When Lila Vaughn called last week to share a sighting of five mountain bluebirds, I immediately heardthe delight and excitement in her voice. She and her friends had just returned from a secret road beyond the Nueces River, where they had seen five female mountain bluebirds.
   The couple who told Vaughn and friends about the birds was Vickie Simon, owner and operator of Nature's Bird Store, and her husband, Joel. Vickie said that, on her day off, she had to choose between an hour's birding and a nap. Anyone who knows Vickie would know she picked the birding. The road is not far from where she and Joel live, and they often go there.
   Species rarely seen here
   Mountain bluebirds come here so seldom that they are not on our Nueces County list, although they were included on an earlier list, classified as "accidental," meaning only one to four recorded sightings in the last 20 years. One spent several weeks at Port Aransas last winter. These are "good'' birds that any local birder would like to add to their list.
   There are three species of true bluebirds in the United States. One of them, the eastern bluebird, wanders through our area occasionally, often enough to be on our county list as Sr (Summer rare) and Wu (Winter uncommon). Eastern bluebirds may be seen, usually in winter, in Rockport, Flour Bluff and on Padre and Mustang Islands. Eastern bluebird males have deep blue backs and rusty throats, shoulders and breasts. Females are similar but lighter.
   Western resembles eastern
   Western bluebirds, also not on our list, are found at higher altitudes, in the timbered slopes of the Trans-Pecos Mountains. They resemble the Eastern except the male head is all blue, even the throat, with rust beginning below the bib.
   Male mountain bluebirds are an unforgettable sight. Their blue is turquoise, dark on the back and lightened on the breast. The female is less spectacular, pale whitish gray all over with white edges on wing feathers that give a scalloped look.
   Birds draw watchers
   The bluebirds were magnets that called those of us who live across town. When I finally got there, the late afternoon light was fading. The road, remembered from earlier Corpus Christi Christmas counts, curved as it passed brushy woodlands, marshy pastures and small farms.
   The first bird we sighted was a loggerhead shrike, crisp black and white, and it dove at a bug to prove it. The road ended in a locked gate and left little turning room between wet ditches. We sighted birds in the trees framed by the setting sun. When we finally got them in the glasses, we could see faint bluish gray. They were female mountain blues.
   Other varieties sighted
   As we came back to the highway, we found other birders. They were looking at more bluebirds, five of them, three mountain. We persuaded them to go back and look at ours but the light was about gone.
   The mountain bluebirds drew the Simons' back the next day for a closer look. They saw five easterns and three mountains, examined with a scope in good light. One was even going in and out of a hole in a low post at roadside.
  

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Phyllis Yochem, a Corpus Christi resident, has studied birds in Texas since 1960.

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