THE BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER
by Walter L. Meagher
Photos by Wayne Colony
Two women took turns dropping a bucket into a well, at Juan Ruiz, a pueblito a few miles past the Presa. The ground sloping from the well ran down to a streambed, empty of flowing water but full of rocks waiting for the June rains. In the untidy shrubs at the field edge, I saw a male and female Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, scooting in and out of filtered sunlight.
Since ‘gnat’ is a word that belittles the beauty of the bird, the male dressed as handsomely as Robert E. Lee, I never say the name, except to you, who will appreciate my reservation as soon as you see the gnatcatcher for yourself. But I must say something ornithological to justify this column. On average, the Blue-gray is 11 cm long - the tail makes more than half the length. Gnats are 1/12th of a centimeter. The predator, then, is much larger than its prey. Gnats are more easily seen when flying; a long tail gets the Blue-gray airborne by swishing against the leaves. Whichever bird caught the most gnats in evolutionary time had the most secure lineage, accounting for a tail we think of as simply a mark of the bird’s wardrobe.