CyFair Birdwalk

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As part of Earth Week, I led a birdwalk across the CyFair campus on Thursday morning. Unfortunately, it was another day with very few migrants, except for a couple of Baltimore Orioles.

However, I was able to show the three students who participated a good number and variety of birds.

As usual, Northern Mockingbirds were everywhere.

White-winged Doves were everywhere, too, and we also saw a few Mourning Doves.

I was pleased to see that we still had a small group of Savannah Sparrows.

A couple of Loggerhead Shrikes were perching on lampposts and swooping down to catch bugs in the grass. 

No walk around the campus would be complete without a few European Starlings, the only invasive species that turns up regularly at the college.

The students were excited to see a Green Heron fishing by the waterfall.

Surprisingly, they were just as excited to see a male Mallard in the ditch along the northern edge of the campus.

While we were watching a Spotted Sandpiper in the same ditch, I noticed a much less common visitor: a Solitary Sandpiper.

I missed getting photos of a Swainson's Hawk, a Red-tailed Hawk and a Crested Caracara but fared better with a Turkey Vulture that flew over as I was saying goodbye to the students.

Our tally for the walk was 32 species, which I thought was quite good for 90 minutes:

Pied-billed Grebe, Neotropic Cormorant, Great Egret, Green Heron, Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Mallard, Mottled Duck, Red-tailed Hawk, Swainson’s Hawk, Turkey Vulture, Crested Caracara, Killdeer, Solitary Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper, Mourning Dove, White-winged Dove, Western Kingbird, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Great Crested Flycatcher, Loggerhead Shrike, Blue Jay, Purple Martin, N Mockingbird, N Cardinal, Savannah Sparrow, E Meadowlark, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Great-tailed Grackle, Orchard Oriole, European Starling.
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