By Don Patterson
As long as there was a little bit of cover for them, the doves would nest in enormous numbers. Many times when stopping to take a leak I would scare up a hundred or so. On one occasion I was having a tire repaired at a busy truck stop and restaurant. Unperturbed by human presence and the noise of their technology, the sound of White Wings settling into a dense growth of prickly pear surrounding the small settlement drowned out everything else. If you liked to hunt doves, it would have been a paradise. In fact, bird hunters from Texas made annual trips into some of these northeastern Mexican watersheds to hunt the white winged doves. But further south, just north of Matehuala, the dove numbers decreased and the birds were completely absent from the valleys along the upper Laja River. I know this to be true because in the early seventies I hunted birds in most of these valleys.
I tell you about these experiences because it gave me a certain perspective about the birds I hunted and the habitats they chose to live in. Even though I was not even an amateur ornithologist I could identify at a glance; Pintails, gadwalls, canvasbacks, cinnamon teal, blue-wing teal, mallards, Mexican ducks and mud hens. I have personally enjoyed for Christmas dinner in San Miguel both Canadian Honkers and Speckle Belly geese. I knew the three species of quail and their natural habitats around San Miguel; the bob white, the moctezuma and the scale. But I have learned that such discoveries prompt more questions. So I just sit, watch, listen and question, “Why hasn’t this he wren found a she wren?”
Other changes have taken place in the valley since I first arrived 52 years ago. It was living here that I had the opportunity to explore our watershed and look at more than birds. Over time I began to understand the watershed’s history, structure and function.We only hunted the morning dove around San Miguel. What surprises me is even now, I don’t believe many have taken notice of the coming of the White Wing Dove into our watershed. I have never taken part in a conversation that discussed them. There are 12 to 15 pairs that come in the late afternoon to drink from the pond in my garden. They usually spend the night roosting in one of my two mesquite trees. Ironically, my own migration into our watershed corresponded to the migration into the rural and urban areas of San Miguel by the Egrets.
The coming of the Egrets was different than the doves. The Egrets environmental impacts were plainly obvious in a number of locations in the municipality. The most visible impact was in Juarez Park. As a consequence, the birds provoked numerous community and governmental actions that often produced, in hindsight, humorous results. At any rate, by the time I took over the department of the Environment and Ecology in 2006, their shit below their nests was destroying the vegetation in Juarez Park and the smell of decaying fish remains permeated the air meters below and beyond.
Meanwhile, the little Canyon Wren continues to visit from time to time but I don’t respond –at least not digitally. I have discovered that, if he arrives, he is more or less punctual –between 11am and 1pm.
