Winter visitors – Part 1

It begins with early migrants vanishing into the great beyond.  Usual faces slowly become less visible until one day I realize they’re gone, and the orchestra of voices that once defined the world starts to change until one day I don’t hear certain songs anymore.  Thus outlines the start of change, the beginning of nature’s shift rotation.

Some joys never leave, sure, and they fill the year with antics and choruses and patterns that accumulate into a foundation over which all other life is drawn.  Yet the seasons change and wash away in their movement a great deal of what many take for granted.

But the watchful eye sees the paints mix, sees the rushing torrent as it clears the canvas so new colors can be placed upon it.  So herein lies a glimpse of those new colors from a perspective brushed in Dallas, Texas, a painting captured at White Rock Lake.

A spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus) perched on a large branch (2009_11_08_037617)

Pure delight sketched in shadows: the spotted towhee (Pipilo maculatus).  Like brown thrashers, they spend a great deal of their time hidden in the understory searching through brambles and thickets hoping to find sustenance.  Heard more than seen, like chickens they scratch vehemently with their feet trying to dig up food.  Their sweet voices seem unattached, sounds floating behind cover that never join with a body.  Stand in place, however, and perchance one will flash its unmistakable plumage in a moment of public display.

A yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) clinging to the side of a tree (2009_10_17_032133)

Even a yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius) cannot hide when it stands against a backdrop of autumnal greens.  I saw while standing in one of my favorite hidden spots a group of six sapsuckers as they shared a tree.  I couldn’t help but be entranced by the scene as these birds normally defend their ground from all other birds.

An orange-crowned warbler (Vermivora celata) perched on a vine (2009_10_24_033662)

The orange-crowned warbler (Vermivora celata) seems downright plain when compared to some of its cousins.  Apparently no white remained for even rudimentary wing bars, let alone other colors for fancy designs.  Once mature, this juvenile will suffer behind a drab olive-to-yellow covering that most would ignore as lacking energy.  Personally, I think even Jackson Pollock would stand intimidated by this species.

An American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) flying over water (2009_10_31_035673)

I said before that those of us most familiar with White Rock Lake define the onset of cooler colors by the arrival of the first American white pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos).  Watching them these many years has drafted a picture of gregarious birds always seeking company at rest, always placing themselves in the vicinity of cormorants, ducks and geese.  And likewise watching them has shown the landscape hangs incomplete from autumn to spring unless these massive birds are penciled in.

A pine warbler (Dendroica pinus) perched on a branch (2009_10_31_035806)

Not before this year have I seen a pine warbler (Dendroica pinus) this late in the season.  They generally pass through, migrate into and out of the lake’s art like so many drips of temporary color.  Nevertheless, this year these birds have remained with the blue-headed vireos, both species having joined the usual rendering as though they elbowed aside the winter artist and placed themselves in the final piece.  As with all of nature’s art, I wonder if both will stay or if both simply wished to impose on the final image this year.

A ruby-crowned kinglet (Regulus calendula) perched on a small branch (2009_11_07_037173)

No representation of winter in Dallas could be complete without the ruby-crowned kinglet (Regulus calendula).  Its body no larger than a hummingbird, it makes up in personality what it lacks in physical stature: they fill the view with pure delight and make it appear as though nothing else exists.  Boisterous and vibrant and energetic.  Chatty and friendly and unafraid.  I can use a million other words to describe how they finish the painting.  No matter the vocabulary, these small bundles of life complete the season like nothing else.

The journal is the thing

Should I waste that which spills from my soul?  Should I dispose of haphazardly the many tellings which spring forth from cluttered and uncluttered thought alike?  Such writs take shape with ease, gleaning from life’s treasures the simple and complex notions that wind their ways through labyrinths of ideas until finally taking shape in the guise of pedestrian words.  Dare I forsake such a thing?

I am but a tool in the hands of creativity.  A lithe bit of sandpaper destined to remove sharp edges from nature’s display.  A rigid scythe meant to clear a path through grasslands too overgrown to be enjoyed by the masses.  A sturdy bridge meant to convey observers across imagination’s mire.  And a supple cloth to dry the sweat from a hard day’s work.  These things am I…  And more.

Green pastures stretch out before me like maidens lying in wait for gentleman callers.  Hills rise like breasts from an earthen mother, and shores stretch like her lips around warm waters.  Trees sway in the breeze like dapple braids of hair touched by loving hands.  If indeed life is anything more than existing, it is a consummation, a marriage betwixt what is and what can be.  I fear ever denying the embrace of this seductress.

In the tiniest of things I find inspiration; in the notation of them I find being.

I reap from fields sown of the universe’s seed.  What comes from me, then, is the simplest interpretation of the greatest mysteries.  To find magic in a single leaf hanging above my head while I travel paths ancient and new…  To bend a twig and find upon it the hopes of a timeless soul wrapped in winter’s slumber…  To stand by the riverside and hear sweet whispers from the commotion that hides beneath its still surface…  Ah, to live in the now, in such a wondrous place, and to never wish to lift a pen so that I might complete the journey that I began…  Blasphemy, it is.  I would rather die.

Why toil with clumsy language?  It remains clumsy only in the hands of those unlearned in its use, uneducated to its robust expression, and unfamiliar with its mystic secrets.  Nay, the journal is the thing in which I conceal and through which I perform.  Find within its borders the vellum of life, a papyrus upon which I paint in fine and broad strokes of words every bit of me, and every bit of the world where I reside.

Catharsis barely scratches the surface of why I blog; expression even less.

I find everywhere the riddles begging to be solved, the confidences left openly where none shall see them only to be discovered by those truly looking.  By the rhythm of the sentence and the cadence of the photograph do I reveal such things as much to myself as to others.

For decades have I reveled in the joy of the journal.  For almost a decade has that joy found new life in blogging.  The universe opens her dress for me, welcomes me to her bosom, holds me close as I ponder the magnificence of her being.

Never could I give it up.

Unmistakable

Of all the ducks in the Americas that one might encounter, the black-bellied whistling-duck (Dendrocygna autumnalis) no doubt represents the most unmistakable.  Seeing them and hearing them makes that clear.

Black-bellied whistling-ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) swimming in the water (2009_11_14_038046)

Too early for anything but dim light to have climbed over the horizon[1], I walked toward Sunset Bay and let my ears guide me to what I already knew must be there: White Rock Lake was hosting a group of these magical beasts.  I found them quite easily as they huddled en masse in the bay’s confluence, the whole group chatting away as though the three dozen or so individuals were debating the day’s plans.

Black-bellied whistling-ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) swimming in the water (2009_11_14_038056)

Until recently this species could be found in North America only in far southern Texas and down into Mexico.  Their historic range extended from there southward through Central America into South America, and they were yearround residents throughout that territory.  But in the last few decades these stunning critters have expanded as far north as the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex as well as into limited areas in surrounding states.

Black-bellied whistling-ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) in the water (2009_11_14_038038)

They are lively birds, talkative and gregarious creatures whose long legs and necks make them look more like geese than ducks.  And docile!  Oh, they are quite docile, something that made them easy marks for hunters (and probably still does when someone chooses to stalk and kill them).

Black-bellied whistling-ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) swimming in the water (2009_11_14_038010)

Rarely do they stay here in North Texas through winter, although that’s not unheard of around these parts.  Mostly, they arrive in early spring and leave in late autumn or early winter.  Only their northernmost populations migrate, an interesting fact and one I think might change as they settle more permanently into their expanded range.

Black-bellied whistling-ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis) flying away (2009_11_14_038080)

Unlike many duck species, black-bellied whistling-ducks are sexually monomorphic[2].  This means there’s no need for eclipse plumage[5].  It also means seeing one of them is seeing all of them—an encounter that engenders a desire to see them again and again, to keep seeing them given their fanciful, whimsical appearance that, true to their description, is quite unmistakable.

And seeing them is only half the fun.  Hearing them is a world unto itself.  They aren’t called whistling ducks for nothing!

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Notes:

[1] The quality of the photos is certainly less than I hoped for.  Being too dark because of the time of day, I had to settle for these images.  There are times when even 400mm doesn’t get me close enough to something, and that never is truer than when it’s dark.

[2] Sexual monomorphism (the opposite of sexual dimorphism[3]) applies when both genders of a species look identical.  Though in the most rigid sense it would hinge on internal anatomy as well as external presentation, a species is generally accepted as being sexually monomorphic when the gender of an individual cannot be determined by its outward appearance.  Black-bellied whistling-ducks and northern mockingbirds are good examples of this as the sex of a single bird can’t be determined by physical presence alone.

[3] Sexual dimorphism applies when a species demonstrates gender-based differences.  Ducks usually are good examples of sexual dimorphism: males and females tend to be dramatically different from each other, sometimes in size but most notably in plumage colors and patterns.  Adult[4] mallard ducks and northern cardinals are good examples of sexual dimorphism.

[4] Sexual dimorphism does not always present itself at birth.  For example, in canines and primates the physical differences between genders usually are apparent at birth.  For sexually dimorphic birds, on the other hand, young often look like adult females because that gender tends to be plain and better camouflaged than adult males.  Hence, many juveniles present female plumage until they molt into adult plumage.

[5] Eclipse plumage is a defense mechanism for many duck species whereby males lose their ostentatious breeding colors and patterns for more subdued female-like plumage.  As ducks molt, they lose their flight feathers, hence males brightly colored who cannot fly to escape a predator stand a better chance of being eaten—and bringing a quick death to a species.  Therefore, many duck species evolved eclipse plumage as a means to ensure males are less visible and showy while they molt, a time during which they may or may not be able to fly.