Sunday, September 08, 2013

Lately at CyFair

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Although this is fall migration season, the CyFair campus has been quiet for birds. A colleague has noticed Yellow Warblers and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers but I haven't seen any migrants.

Our Great-tailed Grackles are resident birds and so they are going through molt at present. The males usually have spectacular tails.



At the moment, most of their tails - and the rest of their feathers, too - are less than spectacular.



And some tails are totally absent - which must be really humiliating.



We always have a Great Egret or two somewhere on campus. One of them has taken to doing its early morning grooming on a lamppost in a parking lot.



The birding trail boardwalk has been almost totally devoid of birds. One reason for this may be that our resident female Red-tailed Hawk has taken to perching over the trail. 



What a stunning-looking bird she is!
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2 comments:

Dorothy Borders said...

Grackles are handsome birds when fully feathered, but nothing looks rattier than a molting grackle!

Jeff said...

I agree!