Nesting Western Kingbirds

.Since returning from our trip to the Lower Rio Grande Valley, I've been interested in watching the progress of the two pairs of Western Kingbirds that are nesting on the CyFair campus.

The pair that has nested under the roof of the college basketball court for the past 8 years is back there this year. At the moment the female is still sitting on the nest.

The other pair nested in a tree in the parking lots and they have made much faster progress. For a couple of weeks I enjoyed watching the adults bringing food to the nest, which had two young.

The youngsters grew surprisingly quickly.

The adults at this site were much more aware of my presence than the pair at the basketball court has been in past years. I imagine this is because their nest is only 15 feet from the ground and therefore more exposed than the one high in the roof of the basketball court.

One young bird was still in the nest at the end of last week.

However, when I checked Monday morning, the nest was empty. The parents have moved their two juveniles to a location high in a nearby tree. 

As the adults seemed agitated when I went over to the tree, I suspect that they will now move their young to another tree. 

I can't wait to see how the other pair fares. They raised four young every year until last year, when they raised only three, perhaps because we were in a drought and so the food supply may have been reduced. It will be interesting to see how many they raise this time. 
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