Passport to Texas

Red-crowned parrot in Rio Grande Valley.

Red-Crowned Parrots: a Nearby Native Species Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

It may surprise no one the Rio Grande Valley is home to a native parrot species. What may astound you, though, is to find one in your yard.

They’re going to come to fruiting trees. When acorns are in season in the fall, they’ll really hit those. If you have a platform bird feeder, you might get parrots coming to your platform bird feeder for sunflower seeds.

Cliff Shackelford, non-game ornithologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife, says the native red-crowned parrot makes itself at home in urban settings; readily building nests in abandoned “real estate.”

They really like dead palm trees. The kind that there’s just a trunk standing, there’re no more green fronds, and it’s very brittle. The golden fronted woodpecker comes in and excavates a cavity and uses it to raise a family; well the next year, a parrot might use it. A parrot can’t really excavate like a woodpecker, but he says, hey, I just need to make this a little bigger, and I’ll use it.

If you live in the RGV and have a dead or dying palm in your yard (that doesn’t pose a safety threat), leave it for the birds. It’s good for them and nature tourism.

Brownsville, Harlingen, Weslaco and McAllen—all have city ordinances where you cannot mess with the birds. And one reason is the nature tourists from all over the world come to the valley to see several unique birds, and the red-crowned parrot is usually near the top of the list.

Learn more about Texas birding opportunities on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Red-Crowned Parrot. Image: Earl Nottingham, TPWD

Texas Native: Red-Crowned Parrot Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

If you live in any of the urban areas of Texas, you’ve probably seen large colonies of the green and gray colored bird known as the monk parakeet. You might think they are native to Texas, but they’re not.

And they were escaped birds that have done very well. But what’s very neat, is if you go a little farther south into the Rio Grande Valley, we have a native parrot, that’s green and has a little red on the forehead, called the red-crowned parrot.

Cliff Shackelford is a non-game ornithologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife.

And that bird [the red-crowned parrot] is a native species with a very small global range that is from south Texas all the way to parts of northeast Mexico.

Cliff says you’ll find the native red-crowned parrot in the Rio Grande Valley. And they may be closer than you think.

They’re highly urbanized. That’s where a lot of the green space is. A lot of the fruit that they’re eating in backyards. Seed feeders and so forth. They’re really thriving well in south Texas.

Tomorrow: This charismatic native parrot and its tendency to dine and nest in the backyards of Rio Grande Valley residents.

Meanwhile, discover the unique wildlife and habitat of Texas with our nine interactive Great Wildlife Trail Maps! Find them on the Texas Parks and Wildlife website.

The Wildlife Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

The ocean is a birder’s paradise. Photo: Camilla Cerea from audubon.org

Where to Observe Pelagic Bird Species Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Pelagic bird species live their lives on the open water, rarely touching land except to breed.

[They need] a place where they’re going to have courtship and mating and build a nest so they can lay eggs and raise young. They can’t obviously do that on the water.

Cliff Shackelford is Texas Parks and Wildlife’s non-game ornithologist.

If you’re an angler, if you’re a surfer—you know people that really like to be out on the open water—you like boating, sailing, you’ve got to feel a special connection to these birds. Because these are your birds, because they’re out on the open water just like these people that love to be out on the water. And these birds spend their whole time out there. And it’s just remarkable.

Pelagic species go largely unseen.

In the Gulf of Mexico, we’ll have “strays” that we’ll never know are out there until somebody goes out there to look, or a specimen washes up on the beach. This is not heavily birded terrain; it’s difficult to get to. There are a lot of fishing crews that go out with guided fishing tours. Actually, a lot of birdwatchers have figured that out: don’t wait for a birding group to get a boat full of people to go out to the Continental Shelf to look at birds. Jump in on a fishing tour—one that might be out for two or three days. Instead of fishing for the big fish out there, you’re looking for birds that are also looking for fish.

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

Albatrosses are just one type of pelagic birds. – Photo © Ed Dunens/Flickr/CC by 2.0

Bird Word: Pelagic Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

It’s fun to talk with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department ornithologist Cliff Shackelford; I always learn something new—such as the word, pelagic.

Pelagic. These are birds of the open ocean or open water.

Cliff points out we’re NOT referring to birds that hang out on lakes and ponds. We’re talking about the big water.

So, in Texas, the Gulf of Mexico is going to be open ocean, basically. And we have lot of birds: storm petrels, shearwaters, albatrosses…these are pelagic birds. These are birds that spend most of their day, and most of their life, out in open waters.

I wondered: do pelagic bird species ever come on land?

They sleep on the water. They feed out on the water. They’re mostly flying—some of them can probably sleep while aloft. But, they of course, have to come to land when it’s the breeding season. And some of these birds don’t get to be sexually ready until maybe their fourth of fifth year like some of the albatrosses. So they might wander the ocean of the world for the first four 9r five years of their life before they ever really touch land.

A clever way to glimpse this fascinating group of birds…tomorrow.

The Wildlife restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This black-capped vireo male is a passerine species.

Bird Words with Cliff Shackelford: Passerine Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This is Passport to Texas

Think of birding as an opportunity to increase your vocabulary. Take the word passerine, for example.

Passerine comes from the Latin, passeriformes—the order of all the songbirds.

Cliff Shackelford is a bird nerd. I mean, an ornithologist.

Passerine is basically a songbird; it’s our perching birds.

And that order includes a big flock of feathered friends.

At least half of the species of birds on the planet belong in this one order of birds. They’re characterized by several things, but the one thing on their feet that’s unique is they have three toes pointed forward and one pointed backwards.

A new word and bird trivia, too? Does it get any better?

Not every bird has that toe configuration. Woodpeckers, for example, have two forward and two back; that allows them to cling to a tree. Some birds have all four digits facing forward, like swifts. Some of the birds that cling to cliff walls and things. And, actually, there is a technical word for passerine’s toe configuration, and it’s called: anisodactyl.

Where else are you going to learn two bird nerd words and avian tootsie trivia? Now go out and impress your friends with your new knowledge.

The Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration program supports our series.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.