a naturalist in the family

[Michael Eisenstadt]

Connie,

Neat about your long-lost birding cousin.

The white wing doves have pretty much displaced
Inca doves in Austin. Havent seen the Eurasian
collared doves yet.

My roommate pointed out a Western or Arkansas
kingbird on a telephone wire day before yesterday.
The Arkansas kingbirds long ago displaced their
cousins the scissor-tailed flycatchers who also
hawk bugs from telephone wires.

Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Connie Clark
To: Ghetto List ; Mary Ann Wilson
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 9:31 AM
Subject: a naturalist in the family


Hi,

I had an awesome experience this past weekend - I joined my cousins at a 
reception for a long lost cousin.  Gary is the son of my dad's brother 
killed in WWII.  He was 18 months old when his 29-year-old dad was killed by 
a sniper during the Battle of the Bulge. His mother did not stay close to 
her in-laws, so we didn't see Gary much growing up - just a glimpse at 
funerals.  Gary's mom chose also to say very little about her deceased 
husband. There is a whole story behind that, I'm sure.

Gary was all ears to my older cousins who could tell him anything about his 
dad. We had a whole box of letters to the family from Jim David during his 
short 8 months of infrantry duty in France and Germany to give to Gary.  He 
was moved.  All too sad, really, even the 'good' wars where we win, produce 
long and deep personal losses.

Getting to know him, I found out that Gary who is about the same age as me, 
is a naturalist, and writes a regular column in the Houston Chronicle (which 
I have read for years, and never actually snapped that he might be my cousin 
Gary Clark). My brother, in the interest of geneology did the successful 
internet research to locate and contact him.

Gary's wife is a professional nature photographer and photographer teacher. 
They are both avid bird watchers, and were happy to know that there is 
another bird watcher in the family. We all agreed that we would get together 
for a birding trip soon.  How cool is that! They are taking off for a couple 
of weeks vacationing, taking notes and photos in Big Bend this weekend. They 
said that their lives revolve around the weekly column.

Here is his latest - I couldn't get her great photo of the collared dove off 
the Chronicle's internet site, but found a link to her website. She has 15 
photographers that she says take nature photos and sell through her service.
http://www.kathyadamsclark.com/
Pretty neat nature photos
There is a book also: Texas Wildlife Photos (I think that's the title), 
published last year.


The welcome mat is out /Eurasian collared doves find a home in Houston

By GARY CLARK

Eurasian collared doves have been expanding their range for centuries 
through natural dispersal and human introduction. These natives of India 
began showing up in Turkey about 400 years ago, then moved into China and 
Japan. They arrived in Europe in the early 1900s, in Britain by midcentury.
A caged-bird breeder brought Eurasian collard doves to the Bahamas in the 
mid-1970s, and those birds were released into the wild during a burglary. 
They spread to Florida by the late 1980s and to Louisiana by the early 
1990s. The Texas Birds Records Committee first documented the birds in 1995, 
and today they are in every coastal county and throughout the state, though 
more prevalent in urban than in rural areas.
When the doves started showing up in Houston, many observers believed they 
were ringed turtledoves, which look similar. Those popular cage-birds are 
also non-native to the United States, and escaped individuals established a 
limited but persistent wild population in Houston some years back.
Detecting the difference between the two doves requires a careful eye, 
because both are sandy-gray and have a thin black half-collar on the back of 
the neck. But the Eurasian collared dove has a gray belly, pale gray 
under-tail feathers and black at the base of the under-tail. The ringed 
turtledove is smaller and has a white belly, white under-tail feathers and 
limited black at the base of the tail.
The two doves also differ in their primary feathers, the flight feathers 
extending from the middle of the wing outward. In flight, the Eurasian 
collared dove shows dark-brown primaries, while the ringed turtledove shows 
pale-brown primaries.
Their songs are similar. To my ear, the Eurasian collared dove has a rather 
harsh three-noted ca-coo-coo sound, whereas the ringed turtledove has a 
softly melodic two-noted coo-kroo sound.
Eurasian collared doves are becoming common all over Texas and are already 
common in other Gulf Coast states. Part of the reason for their expansion is 
readily available food in the form of seed in backyard bird feeders and 
waste grain in farming communities. Like most other doves, they're primarily 
seed-eaters.
It is unclear what effect Eurasian collared doves will have on native 
mourning, Inca and white-winged doves. Where I've observed a mix of native 
doves with Eurasian collared doves, the latter often dominate the feeding 
area, especially at the expense of the smaller Inca doves.