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It is not unusual to see flocks of thousands of Brown-headed Cowbirds and Red-winged Blackbirds in the fields on the Katy Prairie. However, when driving along Porter Road End yesterday, I was amazed to see the road ahead totally blotted out by a huge flock of (mainly) Cowbirds.
As well as blocking the road, they lined up on the hedges and gates on both sides of the pavement, making me feel as if I was in a scene from Hitchcock's movie "The Birds".
Then suddenly, as in the movie, the birds moved on.
Spooky!
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It has been very cold on the Katy Prairie for the past couple of days and so it has been less busy. Less busy with birders, that is. The birds have been just as active as ever.
Every time I drive up to the Cypress Creek bridge on Sharp, I see the Eastern Towhee and a ton of sparrows. Since spotting my first Harris County Lark Bunting last week, I now keep seeing lots of them along Sharp Road. As always this time of year, Red-tailed Hawks and Crested Caracaras are everywhere.
Speaking of Caracaras, I had an odd sighting on Tuesday morning. I was driving past Paul Rushing Park when I noticed several Turkey Vultures and two Caracaras circling. I stopped and looked through binoculars: Five Caracaras were on the ground together. I rushed over and got a photo of one juvenile Caracara feeding on a raccoon carcass.
Back at the car, I realized that a group of Horned Larks was grazing nearby. The male soon moved away.
However, the females stayed near me for several minutes.
Longenbaugh continues to have the male Pyrrhuloxia, a few Lark Buntings and a whole host of sparrows. Inca Doves often show up there also.
While I was watching the Inca Doves, a possum dashed across the road and disappeared under the bridge.
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.We had a spectacular dawn on Saturday.
Dee and I decided to check out the retention ponds on the CyFair campus, because when I was leaving work on Friday, I noticed that 1000+ water birds had settled on the ponds. Unfortunately, most of the birds had left by the time we arrived on Saturday. All that were left were some 300 Ring-necked Ducks, 100+ Ameriucan Coots, and two Pied-billed Grebes, two Redheads and two Canvasbacks.
Our next stop was at the Cypress Creek bridge on Sharp Road. The very first bird I saw there was the female Eastern Towhee that has been hanging out there for weeks.
Two Fox Sparrows were out in the open but quickly fled.
Several other sparrows were feeding but would not let us get close. A Brown Thrasher was more obliging.
Although the wind was really picking up now, we stopped at the Bear Creek bridge on Longenbaugh to see if the Pyrrhuloxia was visible. It wasn't. But as consolation a Wilson's Snipe was foraging in the mud below the bridge.
So it wasn't a good morning's birding but it still produced some nice sightings.
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.I looked in at Cypress Creek again on my way to work yesterday and was rewarded with more great views of a range of sparrows: Fox, Song, White-crowned, White-throated, Harris's and Chipping - plus some House Sparrows.
My main aim was to get a good photo of a White-throated Sparrow. They are very skittish and tend to stay in or quickly run to the shadows. This is a problem because my camera lens doesn't handle low light well. I decided I would try using flash, even though this often makes bird photos look very artificial, almost like paintings. Here are some of the results.
After a few minutes at Cypress Creek I swung by the Bear Creek bridge on Longenbaugh, hoping for the Lark Bunting that everyone else has seen there. Within minutes I had seen 8 species of sparrows but no Bunting. Then three Field Sparrows posed in a tree right next to a singing White-crowned Sparrow. I took a picture of one of the Field Sparrows.
Another bird landed a little higher in the tree. Lark Bunting.
This is a great time to be living and working near the Katy Prairie!
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Birding can be a very frustrating hobby. There are days when you expend a lot of time and effort but see little of interest. Luckily, there are also good days - for example, days when you manage to create a little time for birding and get a huge return on your investment. Yesterday was like that for me.
On my way home I drove up to Longenbaugh Road in hopes of seeing the Pyrrhuloxia that has been lurking near the Bear Creek bridge. It's been a hard bird to find so far this fall but I thought it was worth a try.
I got out of the car, I crossed over the road to the bridge, and the Pyrrhuloxia popped right up.
Okay, so he didn't come right out in the open so I could get really good photos. But he did stay in view for quite a while.
Encouraged by my success with the Pyrrhuloxia, I drove over the Cypress Creek bridge on Sharp Road. Another birder, Mark Kulstad, was already there and was enjoying watching a variety of sparrows. However, when I told him about the Pyrrhuloxia, he decided to take off for Longenbaugh.
Since the Sharp Road birds were in shadow and my camera equipment isn't the greatest, I decided to try to get really close to the patch where the sparrows were feeding. I crept up and stood perhaps 25 feet away. Surprisingly, the birds got used to me almost immediately and so I spent the next 30 minutes watching them at close range. (They often came within 5 feet of where I was standing.)
The sparrows included Chipping, White-crowned and White-throated but I was most pleased to see Harris's, of which there were about 8.
A Field Sparrow looked a little out-of-place next to the Harris's.
A Lincoln's Sparrow fitted in better.
Three or four Dark-eyed Juncos appeared several times.
The best sighting of all was a female Eastern Towhee. Towhees are secretive birds and so it's hard to get good photos of them. However, this particular bird was in a very confident mood and she spent lots of time right out in the open, sometimers too close for my lens to be able to focus on her.
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.The day before Thanksgiving I took a short walk around the CyFair campus, hoping that some new birds might have arrived.
As it turned out, the ponds did have some new birds. About 40 Ring-necked Ducks had joined the 100 American Coots and half-a-dozen Redheads which arrived some days earlier. Unfortunately, the ducks moved to the far side of the ponds when I approached and so I wasn't able to get any photos. The Coots were less nervous.
Songbirds were scarce around the ponds: The only ones I saw were a Yellow-rumped Warbler and an Eastern Meadowlark.
Just as I was leaving, I caught a brief glimpse of a Northern Harrier flying low over one of the parking areas.
The nature trail was very quiet, except for a Ruby-crowned Kinglet.
Then, walking back to my office, I came across a Red-shouldered Hawk. Unlike most hawks, it was not bothered by my presence but sat there while I took several photos from perhaps 20 feet away.
After that it was back to work!
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