Sparrows flock to refuge for Attwater’s prairie chickens
Nothing beats the serenity of a winter prairie on a rolling landscape with tall grasses undulating like sea waves and scenting the air with the purest of nature’s breath.
Such is the joy of visiting the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge near Sealy, where my wife, Kathy, and I went Thanksgiving weekend. We gave thanks for this remnant of a coastal prairie that once blanketed 6.5million acres along the Texas coastal plain.
We arrived early in the morning as the prairie awakened with the chirps of grassland songbirds and the occasional flights of geese or sandhill cranes high in the sky. Morning dew glistened on bluestem grasses swaying in a light breeze as though awakening to the day.
But no Attwater’s prairie chickens. Oh, they were there — maybe 50 or so scuttling within tall grasses foraging for grass seeds. But they didn’t show themselves.
The 10,541-acre refuge is their lifeboat against extinction. Time was when the birds numbered upward of a million, but they drastically declined as the coastal prairie dwindled to one-tenth of 1 percent of its former glory.
Yet, standing on the refuge’s sweeping prairie calms the mind in our fervid times. And then sparrows suddenly pop up on grass stems to delight us like busy little elves. They’re not the pesky house sparrows in our neighborhoods. Instead, they’re grassland sparrows that breed across the northern tier of the U.S. and into Canada and arrive on the refuge for the winter.
At least 10 sparrow species spend winters on the refuge. They’re fun to watch but can be buggers to identify due to their nondescript brownish plumage.
Savannah sparrows are the
most common species and easy to see in the short grasses beside dirt roads. White-throated sparrows show up near the refuge headquarters, where other winter songbirds, such as American goldfinches and rubycrowned kinglets, forage among the sycamore trees.
Along the 5-mile auto tour loop is a parking area near an iron footbridge spanning Coushatta Creek. Across the bridge is a water impoundment that’s home to wintering ducks, such as cinnamon teal and gadwalls.
An observation blind allows a panoramic view of the ducks. Back along the tour loop are fence posts topped with spikes to prevent perching hawks, lest they make a meal out of endangered prairie chickens. But hawks and even owls perch in trees along the creek away from prairie outposts for the chickens.