Campus Birding

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We still have plenty of winter visitors on the CyFair campus. Ring-necked Ducks and Redheads continue to hang out on the retention ponds while flocks of Savannah Sparrows turn up on many different patches of grass.

The large flocks of Cedar Waxwings appear to have moved on but I keep seeing small groups here and there.

We used to have two tiny wetland areas at the start of the college nature trail but they dried up more than a year ago. The recent rains have restored one of the areas, which I hope will prove to be very attractive to spring migrants.

Perhaps because of the water, the nature trail has been fairly busy lately with Yellow-rumped Warblers.

I often still see two other winter visitors - Orange-crowned Warblers and Ruby-crowned Kinglets (below).

I'm going to miss all these birds when they head north and disappear from the campus. Luckily, though, some new birds will turn up in the spring and summer. In fact, one set of new visitors has already arrived. A solitary Purple Martin scout arrived a couple of weeks ago and now a few other Martins have joined him. I'm sure it won't be long until all our Martin houses are occupied.

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