Quite a Change

.After months of heat and drought, this weekend was quite a change. This was brought home to me on Sunday afternoon, when I dropped in at Russ Pitman Park to see if any migrants were around. Within a couple of minutes I had spotted a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, a Black-and-white Warbler and a Great Crested Flycatcher.

Unfortunately, I had no sooner photographed the Flycatcher than the heavens opened and I had to run from the rain.

On Monday morning I took a walk along the nature trail on the CyFair campus. I was hoping that the weekend's storms would have blown in some migrants. At first all I saw were common residents, such as Northern Mockingbirds and Mourning Doves.

To be honest, though, I was pleased to see Mourning Doves yesterday and to have seen dozens of them on the campus over the past weeks. A few months ago I was starting to worry that our numerous White-winged Doves had driven away their smaller and less aggressive cousins.

I was just about to leave when migrants began arriving, starting with a male Baltimore Oriole.

A Great Crested Flycatcher was nearby, its rusty red tail making ID easy.

Then I was thrilled to see a Prairie Warbler, a bird I've only seen twice before and that we've never seen on the campus.

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At Work and Play

At Work
The CyFair campus nature trail was still under water yesterday but I managed to squelch along its first section. My reward was a Northern Waterthrush. I couldn't get close to it because of all the water but I snapped a couple of photos anyway.

The Waterthrush was #194 on my year list.

At Play
This morning I got to spend a little time at Russ Pitman Park in Houston. It was my first visit there and I thought the park was very attractive. Unfortunately, it no longer had the numbers of birds that had been there earlier in the week. Apart from common yardbirds, all I saw were Magnolia Warblers, an American Redstart, a Black-and-white Warbler, a female Indigo Bunting and a Bay-breasted Warbler. Still the Magnolia and Bay-breasted were new birds for 2009.