Birds and 'Skeeters in Quintana

Why is Quintana so special? It is in the "path of totality" for bird migration from Central and South America to nesting grounds in North America. These little guys fly SO FAR! The birds that fly across the Gulf land here tired and hungry. The Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary provides them with fresh water, insects and loads of dewberries ripe on the vine.

When the prevailing north winds are strong and create a tough headwind for the migrating birds, there are events called "fallouts" where the birds are so tired they just collapse here and seem to fall out of the sky. Those events bring birders out of all the nooks and crannies.

We did not witness a fallout, but we were able to see some beautifully colorful birds -- though few would sit still long enough for a photo!

Sanctuary Bird List

Painted Bunting (seen by Mom & Dad)

Orchard Oriole (seen by Mom & Dad) Indigo Bunting

Common Yellowthroat

Swainson's Thrush

Scarlet Tanager (photo in previous post)

Common Yellowthroat in Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary

A strong breeze is such a friend here on the coast -- just enough to keep the mosquitoes away and not enough to keep the birds away. After a VERY buggy and bitey walk yesterday morning in the Sanctuary, I decided to search my digital copy of Karankaway Country for "mosquito." On my walk, I couldn't imagine Bedi calmly standing, binoculars-to-eyes, searching the trees for a Scarlet Tanager without at least one expletive cursing the wretched mosquitoes buzzing about his head and biting any uncovered piece of skin. They are truly an ever-present foe in the grassy dunes and prairie on the coast.

The search of Karankaway Country yielded twenty-three mentions of mosquitoes! He gives them much attention over several pages in two different chapters. In the following passage from the chapter Bay-Shore Ramble, ever the naturalist, he sacrifices himself for a brief study of mosquito behavior. Not something I could do...

Mosquitos, members of a particularly vicious species, had congregated during my late seance; and recruits kept arriving in a hurry to snatch a little nourishment before the choice locations were all occupied. A leisure-class mosquito of the Texas uplands rides the wind, hunts, hums, and bites only at night. The species with which I was now beset, however, makes no claim to respectability. It is empty and active right around the clock.

Yes! I grew up in Central Texas with the common knowledge that mosquitoes were most active in the evening and shade. These coastal mosquitoes are truly a force, 24/7.

He continues...

For a few minutes, while Rex [Bedi's canine companion on the trip] was still deeply concerned with his phantom gopher, I gave these pests my undivided attention. They repaid the compliment with interest. Their investigation proved me to be a thin-textured sack of warm blood--a huge, ill-defended, liquid bonanza, while I found them to be burly insects, individually sluggish, moving in undisciplined hordes, like queenless bees, or like an army without leadership degenerated into mobs of marauding rabble. I had on two shirts. To protect the back of my neck I clamped the edge of a large silk bandanna under my hat rim, permitting the remainder of this flowered garment to fall sheetwise on my shoulders. My legs were encased in knee-high boots and heavy trousers. Thus armed cap-a-pie, and with two kinds of repellent (with lying labels on the bottles), I felt sufficiently fortified to give these creatures, thirsting though they were for my blood, a period of unprejudiced consideration.

In sitting posture my trousers wrinkled; I soon noticed that individuals alighting on the ridges thereof were dissatisfied, shifting uneasily from one place to another, since they were striking "dry holes," as the oil prospector says. The more fortunate ones, wildcatting in the furrows of the wrinkles, "struck oil," and plenty of it. By enduring some discomfort, I found their favorite facial locations to be the temples and a small space under each ear. In these tender areas a puncture produces a welt about the size of a small bean, which itches for a while but disappears overnight. In a way, this lumbersome species is harmless and unable, even though maliciously disposed to inoculate its hosts with malaria or other disease. Undisturbed in a favorable location, this mosquito gorges until its narrow, fragile wings can scarcely support is cargo of human blood. I watched one after another take off clumsily, like overloaded aircraft, and fall into the grass a few feet away. On the back of my hand I mashed one loaded to capacity, and it made a red splash about the size of a dollar.

A book about the coast without significant pages devoted to the mosquito would be a very incomplete story. Mosquitoes have been a menace to humans for centuries in these parts. Bedi notes in a later chapter that the Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca had complained of the mosquitoes in 1541.

Thankfully, our campsite in the county park is in a beautiful field of wildflowers with a fairly constant breeze that keeps the buggers mostly at bay.

I grew up knowing these as "shrimp plants." I always thought it was because the pink part (coral-colored on some) looked like a shrimp. Now, I see that the white part looks very much like a shrimp!

Swainson's Thrush

Dewberries at the Sanctuary