Recent birdwalks at Kleb Woods have produced lots of birds - on Wednesday they found 90 species! So I spent a couple of hours on a birdwalk there yesterday morning.
The walk started off very disappointingly with only a few common birds: N Cardinals, Carolina Chickadees, Blue Jays, House Sparrows, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and Mourning and White-winged Doves.
We walked towards the wetlands area between the two sections of the park, seeing a Loggerhead Shrike, a Killdeer and a Great Blue Heron along the way. Our arrival at the wetlands scared away a Little Blue Heron and a Green Heron that had been feeding. Brown-headed Nuthatches nest here but I've never managed to see them. Yesterday the walk leader, Kendra, called up three Nuthatches for me in a couple of minutes.
An Eastern Bluebird appeared, followed by Red-headed and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and an Orchard Oriole. American Crows were cawing nearby while the sky overhead had Black and Turkey Vultures, and then a Swallow-tailed Kite.
The trail also had a Gray Catbird. (The photo below is of a Catbird I saw on the CyFair campus early on Thursday.)
A Mississippi Kite flew over, too high for photographs.
Back near Lumpy Kleb's house, we had brief views of a male American Redstart. This ushered in a brief spell of activity with Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Baltimore Oriole and Blackburnian Warbler.
Unfortunately, I had to leave at this point. However, as I was pulling out of the parking lot, I had good views of a dozen or so Black Vultures feeding on an armadillo carcass.
Thank goodness for vultures! Without them we would be axle-deep in roadkill in Texas at this time of year.
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P.S.
More about my Mexico trip tomorrow.
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