Saturday, July 26, 2014

Sun City Texas Is A Paradise For Bird Watchers

By Ernesto Berturand


The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports that Americans by the millions have adopted the pastime of birdwatching. A good number of people view birds in areas near their homes but some take a trip away from home in order to bird watch. A variety of publicly available birding sites are located in close proximity of Sun City Texas. Williamson County offers more than 400 kinds of birds and in addition, the state of Texas boasts the highest number of species of birds in all fifty states at 636. The retention ponds constructed in town to empty water coming from vehicle parking lots are home to of a lot of water birds including great blue herons, many varieties of egrets, wood ducks, and teals.

With the many water features, creeks and natural environments found in Sun City Texas that offer a perfect place for native and migratory wild birds, enthusiasts find many occasions to enjoy wild birds around the community. The Birding Special Interest Group is part of the Sun City Nature Club which advances the study of birds, particularly those indigenous to central Texas. The Birding Club provides a variety of research materials which include training books, digital video disks, audio tapes and various other resources which can be checked out from the library.

Men and women of the club get together for bird walks, field trips and monitor homes for birds in native habitats. Birds are extremely plentiful in Sun City Texas. You can regularly observe the flocks of wild turkeys that graze on the wild grasses that grow in the roughs of the golf courses. The bridge that crosses Berry Pond on Del Webb Boulevard houses a huge colony of cave swallows that build their mud nests among the concrete spans under the bridge.

Perching together in groups on the shoreline of Berry Creek, there is a big population of turkey vultures near the bridge to the White Wing Golf Course. The largest scavenger birds in the United States, turkey vultures give preference to broad open areas which provide nearby woods for nesting. The dead and leafless trees, victims of several years of scarce rainfall, are ideal for vultures to keep keen eyes over the creek bed, an empty field and further down, the golf course. Feeding mostly on carrion, turkey vultures eat armadillos, turtles, squirrels and rabbits that often become a victim of road traffic throughout Sun City Texas.

Because of the plentiful wooded areas, water as well as food sources readily available to birds in Sun City Texas, it really is a birder's paradise. For folks that love to observe the growth and progression of baby birds, there's lots of homeowners who welcome nest establishment by simply erecting bird houses, furnishing bird seeds, and flowering garden plants to lure them. There are a number of kinds of hawks drawn to the fields of indigenous grasses, hummingbirds attracted to bird feeders and vivid flowering plants, and owls which track little vertebrates in the evenings.

Lucky Sun City Texas residents have spotted the numerous huge road runners that are native to our area. Their habitat is shrubby country and road runners build a nest on a platform of sticks low in a cactus or a bush. They can be up to 2 feet in length, about half of which is tail. These are particularly valuable birds that feed on reptiles such as snakes, small rodents, spiders, scorpions and road kills. Two roadrunners will sometimes attack a relatively large snake cooperatively.

Sun City Texas Birding Club bird walks are held twice monthly for members to get out and share their love of birds.




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