Campus Birding

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This year's spring migration season has not been a good one, because southerly winds have consistently led to most migrant songbirds overflying southeast Texas. So I have seen many fewer migrants than usual on the college campus.  Most of last week was again very quiet with the only migrants I spotted being a single Indigo Bunting and an Eastern Wood-Pewee.

 

Luckily we have had a lot of Purple Martins move into our martin houses and they are always fun to watch.

As usual, the campus also has several Western Kingbirds, at least two pairs of which have nested here every year for the past 8 years. I haven't seen any signs of nesting yet but the birds are now moving around in pairs, which makes me think that they should be setting up home any day.

Thursday brought a shift in the wind and so on Friday I hurried to work to see if the northerly wind had brought in any migrants. It had. There were quite a few new songbirds along the nature trail. I didn't manage to get any photos of a couple of Nashville Warblers and Wilson's Warblers but I was a little luckier with an American Redstart and a Magnolia Warbler.

 

As north winds were forecast for the weekend, there were likely to be other migrants arriving then. Unfortunately, I wasn't going to get to see them because other commitments meant that I wouldn't be able to visit the campus on either Saturday or Sunday. So all I could do was hope that the north winds would keep blowing until Monday.
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