HAWKS AND HUMMINGBIRDS

By Ella Tyler

A ruby-throated hummingbird moved into my back yard in southwest Houston a few days ago, meaning my mother has, at least for the moment, one-upped her neighbors in the back-yard-birding competition. Mother did not tell the neighbors that I had put out feeders before anyone else because I mistook a sphinx moth for an unusual kind of night-flying hummingbird. She would have lost the advantage.

Our ruby-throat zips between the magnolia and the oak tree then stops on the telephone wire to survey his territory and give my mother a chance to admire him. There are two feeders, plenty of nectar plants, and lots of bugs. Another hummingbird was at a feeder today, too, but we don’t know whether this visitor will stick around or if more will come.

Although we are delighted with our lone hummingbird, people who live closer to the coast will have many more of these lovely birds at their nectar plants and feeders. Lake Jackson hosted a hummingbird festival last weekend and Rockport will hold its hummingbird festival this weekend. The Rockport weekend features a variety of speakers and trips. Visitors may see as many as a hundred hummingbirds in a single yard. Information about the festival can be found at the festival website.

This is also prime migration time for hawks, falcons, and other birds of prey. If you live in the city, you are unlikely to have a raptor in your back yard, except, perhaps, for a Mississippi Kite. In our area, the best place to see migrating raptors is the Smith Point Hawk Watch Tower. It is about a 90-minute drive east of downtown Houston on east Galveston Bay at the end of FM 562. There is a 20-foot tall platform that is open from 8 am to 4 pm every day until Nov 15. The tower is staffed by volunteers who are there to count the species but who also will help you identify birds. Hawks are most active from mid-morning to mid-afternoon. For directions and more information, see the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory website.

Nature writer Gary Clark, in the Sept 2 Houston Chronicle, writes, “Among the more spectacular views of raptors are broad-winged hawks soaring through the sky in huge, circling flocks called kettles. A kettle of these hawks may number in the thousands and certainly in the hundreds as they soar in circular layers spiraling high in the sky.”

According to Hawk Watch International, it is not unusual to see more than 5,000 broad-winged hawks on a single day at Smith Point.

Even though tens of thousands of hawks and their kin have been counted at Smith Point in a single season, more than half a million of these birds have been counted in a single season at Hazel Bazemore Park in Corpus Christi. Hawk Watch International estimates that 95% of the North American population of broad winged hawks passes through Corpus Christi. Many wildlife conservation activists are concerned about the hazard a proposed Corpus-area wind farm may present to migrating birds.

If you’d like to learn more about birds in this region, the Houston Audubon Society and Rice University’s Continuing Education Program are offering a beginning birding class led by Glen Olson. It will meet on five Wednesday evenings, beginning Sept 27.