Diverse habitats attract birds and birders alike

By Danielle Rexrode
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

According to Richard Louv, author of critically acclaimed Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, nature enthusiasts are fading in today’s fast-paced, high-tech society, especially among children.

In fact, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife- Associated Recreation, the number of Americans who participate in traditional forms of recreational outdoor activities decreased by ten million from 1991 to 2001.

Yet, Louv sees hope in one well-known outdoor pastime— birding.

He sites reports in World Watch and Birding magazines, which say that while birding has always been a traditional outdoor hobby, it is now the fastest-growing branch of outdoor wildlife watching.

Here in Texas, the vast variety of habitats makes for excellent bird watching. “The community is in a good location for birding, close to parks and natural areas. We’re able to see some really nice birds,” says birder Pat McKinley, who lives at Eagle’s Trace in Houston.

Outdoor classroom
McKinley enjoys watching the colorful array of birds that visit Eagle’s Trace. “We’re on the fourth floor and have a great view of the lake. We see plenty of water birds,” she says.

With 70 sprawling acres, a lake, walking paths, and the 7,800-acre George Bush Park across Highway 6, McKinley sees everything from hawks and scissortail flycatchers to lesser scaups and pied-billed grebes, which dive into the lake to get their food. She has even spotted an anhinga on the lake.

“There was a whole family of black-bellied whistling ducks at the lake which you don’t normally see around here. They’re much more popular in the Rio Grande Valley and farther south in the tropics,” McKinley says. “We have a shelf full of bird books which we refer to if we see a bird we don’t recognize. And we started a ‘life list’ which is a list of birds you compile as you see them.”