CyFair Campus

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Now that spring has arrived, the bird situation is changing on the CyFair campus on Barker-Cypress Road.

Our year-round residents are still here, of course, and every morning echoes with the songs of Northern Mockingbird (below), Red-winged Blackbirds and Northern Cardinals (below).

Although many of our winter visitors have moved on, our flock of Cedar Waxwings has grown to well over 1,000 birds. 

The flock has stayed mainly in the less accessible parts of the campus this year and I've only been able to get photos of a few individuals. I'm hoping I will get some closer looks before the flock leaves next month.

Quite a few Purple Martins (below) have now settled in. They are the first of our summer breeding birds to arrive and they should soon be followed by several pairs of Western Kingbirds.

I have also seen a couple of signs that spring migration is happening. On Monday I saw a Gray Catbird, on Tuesday I had a brief glimpse of a Brown Thrasher (below) and on Friday a White-eyed Vireo turned up.

I'm hoping that this spring migration will produce more warblers, Orioles, Tanagers, Buntings etc. than the handful that turned up here last year. However, whether we are lucky will depend almost entirely on the weather patterns over the next six weeks.
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