Clay-Colored Robin one of several birding favorites in Laredo

By Penny Warren

When the brown, brown robin

Comes bob, bob, bobbin'

Along, along

There'll be no more sobbin'

When he starts throbbin'

His old sweet song. . . .

Here I am, singing happily away, and Great-Uncle Edgar just about falls out of his rocking chair. “What's that you said?” he sputters. “Brown robin? Hey, wait a minute! It's the red, red robin. I mean, everybody knows robins are red, don't they? As in robin redbreast? And you call yourself a birder!”

“Sure do, Unk. You don't like brown? Okay.” I shrug and go on warbling,

“When the clay-colored robin

Comes bob, bob, bobbin' --”

In mid-measure I look up from leafing through my Sibley's Guide and notice that Great-Uncle Edgar is turning puce, clearly about to have a conniption. “Now what?”

“What do you mean, clay-colored? You mean clay like Saltillo tile? Red Saltillo tile?” He brandishes his cane like a sabre. “What in tarnation's wrong with red? The red, red robin?”

“Clay as in earth-tones, Uncle Ed. Al Gore invented the Clay-Colored Robin when he got finished with the Internets.”

Uncle Ed gives me a Look. Deliberately, he takes his spectacles -- not glasses, spectacles -- out of his pocket, unfolds them, and perches them on his nose. “Give me that dam' book there, gel. And go find me a Jack Daniels so I can see this here brown robin, too.”

Well, now, Uncle Edgar may have his foibles, but the fact is that Laredo 's robin is brown. Or clay-colored, if you want to be technical about it. There's a Clay-Colored Sparrow, too. For some reason, ornithology tends to avoid the word brown, except when describing jays and a handsome thrasher that we sometimes see in South Texas during the winter. Brown birds are clay-colored, olive (fooled you; bet you thought the Olive Sparrow was Army green, didn't you?), rufous (if red-brown) or buff (light brown). Don't ask.

Besides coloring, the main difference between our Clay-Colored Robin and the American Robin -- the properly red robin -- is their home range. American robins, with their familiar red breasts, are found throughout North America except for Florida and the desert portions of Texas , Arizona , and California . Heading south, their habitat follows the Sierra Madre down into Mexico, where elevation compensates for latitude. If winters are cold enough to the north, large numbers will migrate into South Texas, frequently in association with flocks of Cedar Waxwings. In Laredo, they tend to roost in the remnant woodland along the river, foraging by day, settling into the sugar hackberries and black willows by night.

Their clay-colored cousins, though, breed here; Ron LaDuque has documented nesting pairs in the Las Palmas area to the east of the Lincoln-Juarez Bridge, and Laredo birders have observed them regularly. Others have been reported on the Laredo Community College campus. Their reproductive biology, however, remains little understood; the USGS listing for the bird still contains many question marks. It is not clear, either, whether their presence in Laredo is recent or only recently observed. According to Kay Scoruppa of the USGS Corpus Christi office, Webb County is one of the most underreported areas of the United States. The robins may have been here all along, or they may have only recently become established here, part of an ongoing -- and alarming -- northern migration of tropical species.

In either case, the Clay-Colored Robin is one of Laredo's prize birds, a species that dedicated birders will travel literally thousands of miles and pay hundreds of dollars to see. (A Chicago birder, visiting Laredo, once estimated that after the 500th, every bird on his life list carried an average price tag of about $170 -- and that was with free air miles.) To see this local treasure, walk the Las Palmas trail beginning at the bridge end. Pairs have nested in the hackberry/willow woods on the slope leading down to the vega, as well as in the palms themselves. Look for a bird the size and shape of the more familiar robin redbreast -- larger and heavier than a mockingbird -- with cocoa-brown plumage above and slightly lighter breast and belly, fading sometimes to buff toward the vent and undertail feathers. Its song is a long, liquid ripple, American Robin with an Oriole accent. Follow it through the palms, and hope to catch a sight of this rare prize.

Another Laredo jewel can be found in the carrizo that grows along the river bank. The truth is that it isn't terribly bright and shiny, either, but it is a prize that birders will cross the Atlantic to see. The White-Collared Seedeater stands -- perches? -- a diminutive four and three-quarters inches tall, but, especially in breeding season, this little guy has attitude enough for an eagle. The male of our regional subspecies sports a black back and head, a cream-to-buffy breast and throat (the so-called white collar), with a black band across the chest just below. The female is buffy-to-golden brown above, lighter below, and can easily be mistaken for a lady goldfinch. If you see the bird in profile, though, there's no question. The upper bill, or culmen, curves like a tiny parrot's beak, a hook nose several degrees beyond Roman. Find your seedeater perched on the shaggy heads of the cane, singing his heart out in late spring and summer to warn away all comers who might encroach on his firmly-held territory. The female will sing, too, but is generally content to let her mate handle home defense. Seedeaters respond fairly well to “pishing” -- making a repeated psssh-psssh-psssh sound -- and will pop up out of the cane for a look at the silly human. One of the most dependable venues for the WCS is the river bend/gravel pits area just south and west of the LCC campus. Go past the end of the ruined south wall of the fort and take the Border Patrol road that swings south and east around the first large pond. There is almost always a Seedeater in the cane that lines the road there, and you may be lucky enough to see several flit across the path in front of you. Other good prospects are Father McNaboe Park and La Bota Ranch.

The White-Collared Seedeater is another “new” bird for Laredo. It was previously known in the United States only in San Ygnacio, but has been well documented now as far north as the former Galvan property in northern Webb County. For every Christmas Bird Count for the last four years, the Laredo circle has had record high numbers for the species. There is such a high concentration of Seedeaters in Laredo -- “high” relatively speaking, of course -- that it is possible that the local birds are the core population from which the others radiated up and down the river. The other possibility, of course, is that the birds are moving north in response to changing climatic conditions. That's good for birders, but not necessarily for the birds.

A third inconspicuous treasure resides in Laredo only in spring and summer. The inland population of the Least Tern mate and raise their chicks on the sand flats of local wetlands. Measuring only nine to ten inches, these graceful little “sea-swallows” with their pointed wings whirl and dive for the insects that hover over the water, sometimes plunging below the surface in pursuit of minnows and other fingerling fish. Like all terns, they are mainly bright white with black accents. In the Least's case, the black forms a “mask” across eyes and face, giving the bird a romantic balla in maschara look. For preference, they lay their speckled eggs directly on sandbars that rise up in the center of shallow ponds, or at the ends of spits that jut out from the shore. The water forms a protective barrier against predators such as cats and possums, though raccoons can be quite aquatic on occasion. Heavily mottled in shades of brown and tan, the eggs are almost invisible against the bare sand on which they are laid. When they hatch, the downy babies blend in just as completely. The easiest way to see a chick is to watch as a nesting bird returns from foraging, and look where the parent settles. You will need a scope or really good binoculars for this. Do not try to approach the birds. Eggs and chicks are very difficult to see, and every member of this endangered species is especially valuable. If a parent begins a wing-dragging, “wounded bird” display, go back exactly the way you came. You are much too close to a nest.

These are three of Laredo's rare birds, the kinds of prizes that draw birders from all over the United States and even from Europe and Asia. Because birders need food and shelter, they are economic assets. But because they are also vital parts of an ecosystem, they are even more valuable to the local community of plants and animals, good and worthy of preservation for their own sakes. The inland Least Terns are on the official Endangered Species list. The Clay-Colored Robin and the White-Collared Seedeater are not, and they are outposts of much larger populations in Mexico and further south.

That does not, however, mean there are no grounds for concern. There is a possibility that the Clay-Colored Robins have always been established in our area, in which case it's just taken a long time and the development of a local birding community for anyone to notice. Certainly no one noticed before; a popular birding guide for South Texas used to recommend that birders go directly to San Antonio from the lower Valley because there was nothing of interest in between. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.

But there is another possibility, a more disturbing one. The last several years have seen the northward movement of a number of species. The Ringed Kingfisher was once known in Texas only in the Lower Valley. It has since established a large breeding population in Laredo and has been seen now as far north as Austin. Its smaller cousin, the Green, has also been moving steadily out of its historic range. In the last year, birders in the Valley have been treated to such rare tropical species as Green-Breasted Mangoes ( a hummer species), Blue Mockingbirds, and Orange Bishops. From the opposite direction, American Robins make it to South Texas now only when they are driven out of winter grounds further north by extreme cold. No one has seen a Canada Goose in our area for years. Our climate is changing. Global warming is not coming; it's here now, and species are responding by moving into habitats that meet their requirements for survival. Those requirements include appropriate temperatures for breeding, food sources, the relative absence of predators. This isn't just a human problem, though it is largely human-caused and human-correctable.

First, habitat must be preserved. Green spaces along streams and within residential areas must be left in place or reestablished. Birds can thrive in surprising places; a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks reside in the cemeteries on Meadow and Saunders, and apparently make a good living off the neighborhood mice and ground squirrels. Another top raptor pair, a Great Horned Owl couple, has courted and raised young in my Heights neighborhood. Nothing, though, can take the place of wild lands, left wild. Responsible development is the key to habitat preservation. Once the habitat is gone, the birds and the rest of the wildlife community will be gone, too.

Second, and more difficult, the trend toward global climate change must be corrected. There are remedies that must be put in place at a governmental level -- the United States should sign Kyoto forthwith -- but there is much individual citizens can do, too. Proper insulation can reduce the amount of fossil fuel expended to heat or cool buildings. Public transportation and hybrid or human-powered vehicles can cut down on petroleum consumption. Walking and biking are good for you -- and no one really needs a Hummer.

At least no one really needs a large, ugly, mustard yellow vehicle. I'd trade one in on the winged kind any day.

(An instructor of English, Penny Warren is a writer, photographer, and mainstay of the Laredo birding community.)