Northern Jacana visits Estero Llano Grande State Park World Birding Center

Wednesday , August 09, 2006

I offered the scope to Wendy. She stared at the bird for some minutes. When she finally lifted her eyes, they were streaming tears. "What a beautiful bird. We're so fortunate to see it . . ." she murmured. Wendy waved and walked away, tears dripping off her face.
It is deliciously exciting to birders when a rare bird shows up in the Valley. Rare birds commonly appear here because we are located under the overlap of Tropical and Temperate geographic and climatic regions.

In the old days - actually the very recent past, five years ago - we had to wait for a telephone call from a friend to find out about a rarity, or we had to check in with the bird alert telephone recording system that was updated daily, for years by Father Tom. As a result rare birds were rarely seen by many people.

Today, all that has changed with the advent of the internet's list serve, TexBirds. On Saturday August 5, 2006, about 12:00 noon, a tropical Northern Jacana was discovered at the new Estero Llano Grande State Park in Weslaco. At 12:27 pm Ruben Zamora, Interpretive Programs Director at the Park, placed a message on TexBirds, and shortly after that birders began arriving.
I happened to be out and not monitoring my email, but late afternoon back at the office I discovered two posts with the news, and jumped on it. About 5:45 pm I ran into Ruben Zamora and some returning birders at the park. They directed us to see Wendy from San Antonio 500 yards ahead. Wendy's husband back in San Antonio had telephoned her on South Padre Island where she was staying. Wendy waved to us and pointed out the striking bird. I set up my scope and admired its strong colors, long blue-gray legs, rusty red body, not much of a tail, black head, neck and eye, very bright yellow bill with a blue top at its base and a yellow skin front on its head above the bill. Its wings are pale yellow on the flight feathers.

This 9.5 inch tall wader has a wing span of 20 inches and weighs 3.3 oz (95 g). Known as Cirujano Mexicano (Mexico), and scientifically as Jacana spinosa, it is common from Mexico south to Panama, but very rare in US and in the Valley. It is found in shallow ponds and at the edges of lakes. It is uniquely equipped with long legs and gigantic long toes to walk successfully on lily pads and other floating plants (water hyacinth) without sinking them. Its diet is mainly insects, occasionally small fish. We watched it carefully picking tiny insects off the tips of floating algae.

It has nested very rarely in Texas. The female engages up to four mates, laying about four
round brown eggs with black scrawling in each mate's nest! Hence the males mostly incubate and care for young. Nests are a cup shape construction on floating or standing marsh plants. Fresh material is added during incubation, which runs 23 days. Young leave the nest with the male in two days. He leads them to food sites where they feed themselves. At four weeks young start flying. See "Lives of North American Birds" Kennn Kaufman, 1996, page 189.

Pasted below out of Texbird are the first two posts alerting birders to the Northern Jacana in Weslaco, to illustrate how efficiently today's alert system works.
Northern Jacana at Estero Llano Grande 8/5
From: Ruben Zamora Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 12:26:59
Park Manger Marcy Martinez and I observed a Northern Jacana in Ibis Pond
right in front of the Visitors Center Classroom this noon-time.
Ruben Zamora, Biologist Interpretive Programs Director
N Jacana still there at 2:15pm
From: Valley Nature Center Date: Sat, 5 Aug 2006 14:23:21
Just back from Estero Llano Grande WBC state park in Weslaco. glad I work
at the VNC just cross town! The Northern Jacana was still there as of
2:15pm. It is easily seen from the visitor center's deck. Bring a scope if
you want those real close ups, but binos will give you good views as well. It is an adult in pretty much full plumage. Valley birders are already flocking! One gorgeous bird!!
Martin Hagne, Executive Director, Valley Nature Center

Copyright 8/2006 Keith Hackland
Bird Trails and Tales, 801 Main Street, Alamo TX 78516-2520
(956) 782-9912
Email alamoinn@aol.com