Monday, February 17, 2014

Bird Counts

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On Friday morning it was very foggy when I arrived on the CyFair campus. Luckily, the fog burned off within a few minutes, allowing me to take some photos of our resident Osprey.


A couple of hours later it was time for our Great Backyard Bird Count event. Over fifty people turned up to take part in the count but unfortunately it had turned very windy and so we didn't see as many birds as we had hoped for. 

On Saturday morning I did a brief count at the Longwood retention pond on Huffmeister. Let me just mention a few of the birds I saw.

One of the adult Bald Eagles was sitting on the nest, while the other kept appearing and disappearing in the distance.



As usual, a Great Egret and a Little Blue Heron (below) were busy feeding.


Out on the water eight Pied-billed Grebes were swimming around in the company of two Northern Shovelers.


I was hoping for some shorebirds and, sure enough, there were about thirty Least Sandpipers and a Lesser Yellowlegs (below). 


I wasn't surprised to see Killdeer but I was surprised to see no fewer than 42 of them.


While I was counting the Killdeer, I noticed that they were accompanied by several Wilson's Snipes.








I counted seven Snipes before starting to move closer to get some better photos. I moved in quietly enough not to startle the Killdeer but apparently not quietly enough for the Snipes. When I looked up, they had hunkered down and all I could see were their backs.

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