Montezuma Quail

The Montezuma quail was a tough bird because it’s so skittish and was only known to be frequenting one place, the water fountain by the feeders at Indian Lodge. Our first evening we sat out quietly for over two hours with no luck.

The following morning I volunteered to sit in the pre-dawn light and wait while others had breakfast. When the birds crept in, I had no idea who was behind me but I didn’t dare move a muscle, hardly dared breathe. I sketched quickly and quietly, my hands shaking. (Most of our group and several others were in fact there, quiet and also shaking.)

This is a bird I’ve seen before but it was a highlight — it’s so beautiful, it’s so spooky, it’s so rare.

A note about how I’ve done this. Early on I realized it would be hard to do watercolors of birds on the spot — even in a pared-down form that’s a lot of “stuff” to wield for a bird that might stay for five seconds — so I tried to get multiple sketches of each species as they popped in and out of sight. I then tried to put the sketch into my accordion-fold book as soon as I could, preferably that day, so I still had a good memory of color. In retrospect I wish I’d made some color-pencil sketchnotes, but that will have to be next time…

Postscript, 5/6/08: my final Texas bird list can be found here .

Colima Warbler

This one was the one for which I got 12 blisters… Working as a pair on the Colima Trail near Boot Spring. We heard several on the way up; saw a glimpse or two here or there; then finally, knockout views (repeated down at Boot Spring, which is where I realized I was not going to get down the mountain without a whole lot more blisters AND bad knees if I went down the steep trail, and even more blisters if I went back the longer, gentler way, which is what I opted to do, having cached a bottle of water there on the way up…)

Canyon Towhee

One of the advantages of visiting a place with well-stocked feeders is that you can sketch birds you don’t ordinarily see easily and for hours. (One of the best parts about this trip for me was the ample opportunity for sketching birds, period.)

The canyon towhee looks very similar to California towhee but there are important differences. Not all the canyons we saw had a black chest spot, but the bird is overall duller and the pattern around the face and head, while subtle, is quite different. (The songs and calls are VERY different.)

I enjoyed this bird as much as seeing the flashy denizens of the Texas scrubland. It was a huge treat to sit for a long time and try and record it every time it came out, noticing this or that faint line in the throat or face.

Learning the bird: that’s why I do this.

Green Kingfisher (For Teresa)

A brief stop in Del Rio on our way west from Concan yielded this gorgeous kingfisher, sitting on a branch in a city park.

We saw the bird again on our last day, flying toward us, its white forehead shining like a beacon. I don’t seem to have caught the white forehead in the sketches, so this is a bird I’d like to study more. Tiny bird with a huge bill.

The Dolorous Roadrunner

Roadrunners have a perky, cheerful reputation, fleet-footed and cheeky. Certainly when I’ve seen them in the past I haven’t found anything to contradict this.

Until — until I heard one sing last week at Big Bend. It’s a mournful, descending song, rendered with the bird’s head below its feet as it perches in a tree presumably above the nest. Mourning doves sound cheerful by comparison.

We sang the canto lacrimoso of the roadrunner for Steve and Nick who had missed the Montezuma quail on Saturday… Ooo. Ooo ooo ooo ooo ooo.