Flycatchers

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As you might expect given the number of bugs we get here, flycatchers are a very common sight in our area from spring through fall. Of the many species that you are liable to see here at that time of year the most spectacular is the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.

When winter approaches, the warm-weather flycatchers head south and few if any are still here by Christmas. Throughout most of the winter they are traditionally replaced by only one flycatcher species, the Eastern Phoebe.

However, in recent years there have been frequent sightings of several flycatcher species that wouldn't normally be found in our area. The most commonly sighted of these birds is the Vermilion Flycatcher. 

Male

Female

Vermilion Flycatchers now routinely winter at sites such as Bear Creek Park, El Franco Lee Park and Anahuac NWR.

Two other southern birds are also being seen with increasing regularity. 

Couch's Kingbirds often turn up on the Katy Prairie and at sites such as Bear Creek Park.

Great Kiskadees frequently appear on the Katy Prairie, too, but they are also spotted at Sheldon Lake and other local sites.

Say's Phoebes are less commonly seen but sometimes winter in our area. This one spent last winter in El Franco Lee Park.

If you go birding in our area this winter, you are likely to see all five of the species mentioned above. And if you are really lucky, you may even see some other flycatcher species. For example, last winter Bear Creek Park hosted a Greater Pewee, an extremely rare visitor to Texas.

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Last Week at Work and at Home

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The CyFair campus has continued to be quiet for birds. We do have a lot of Northern Mockingbirds, though, including this one with a damaged beak.

The parking lots have large numbers of Great-tailed Grackles. This female had a hard time subduing and eating a large dragonfly.  

At home all our usual residents have been visiting the feeders, including a constant stream of Carolina Chickadees.

The Blue Jays enjoy both the peanuts we put out and our birdbaths.

We have a couple of families of House Finches.

Several Tufted Titmice have become regular - and very welcome - visitors to the feeders in our backyard.

This male Orange-crowned Warbler was the first of our winter residents to show up this year.

 

The second was a Yellow-rumped Warbler that appeared on Sunday.

I have seen several Ruby-crowned Kinglets at CyFair but the male that has spent the past five winters in our yards still hasn't shown up. I'm beginning to think that perhaps he didn't survive his time in the north or else died during migration. .

Baytown Nature Center

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Baytown Nature Center was fairly quiet for birds, perhaps because there was a stiff breeze. We weren't complaining, though, because the breeze kept the mosquitoes at bay.

The Yellow-crowned Night Herons that had been everywhere on my previous visit were replaced on this visit by White Ibis.

Several Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets (below) took offence at our approach.

This Snowy Egret was less bothered by our presence.

The wind was making grooming difficult for an Osprey perched near the gazebo.

Close by, a Belted Kingfisher was getting blown around as it perched on a snag.

A walk around the site turned up surprisingly few birds but two butterflies, a rather worn Monarch and a Common Buckeye. 

As we were leaving, we stopped to admire a Brown Pelican fishing.

Our final sighting was of a Forster's Tern wheeling and diving again and again.

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Wordless Wednesday

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San Jacinto

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Saturday morning we drove over to the San Jacinto Monument site on our way to Baytown Nature Center.

The boardwalk had several Sedge Wrens, as well as a Tricolored Heron (below).

The bare trees in and around the bay were crowded with Neotropic Cormorants, drying their wings or simply resting.

The bay itself was busy with hundreds of American White Pelicans.

Lines of Pelicans were crisscrossing the water.

Brown Pelicans fish by diving headfirst into the water. White Pelicans fish by floating on the surface and dipping their heads into the water. They often fish in  groups, forming a semi-circle or complete circle in order to corral their prey.

After watching the pelicans for a while, we headed to Baytown via the Lynchburg ferry. Before taking the ferry, we stopped to check out the beach below the Monument Inn. I was hoping for a range of shorebirds but the only birds there were American Avocets (below) and Laughing Gulls.

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Eagles and Vultures

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Non-birder friends and acquaintances are often excited to tell me that they've just seen an eagle. However, when I question them about their sighting, it usually turns out that what they saw was not an eagle but one of three other species of large birds that are resident in our area.

It seems that the bird most often misidentified as an eagle is the Turkey Vulture, a huge bird that is common throughout the USA. Turkey Vultures don't have the most beautiful faces but they fly like angels, using air currents so well that they only rarely have to flap their wings.

Here in the Houston area we are lucky to have two species of resident vultures. The second is the Black Vulture, a bird whose range is largely restricted to the southern and southeastern states. The Black Vulture has a gray face and neck, and has white only at the tips of its wings. It is smaller than the Turkey Vulture and has to flap its wings much more often as it flies.

BTW, the reason why vultures have such ugly heads and necks is a very practical one: It doesn't make sense to have a beautiful plumage on your head and neck if these parts are going to spend a lot of time rooting around inside the dead bodies of other animals. 

Another bird that is frequently mistaken for an eagle is the Crested Caracara, a type of falcon whose US range used to be almost entirely limited to south Texas but which has now extended that range to include much of the eastern half of the state.

Although the Caracara is in the falcon family, it often acts more like a scavenger than a bird of prey. So, as the following pictures show, it may be seen arguing over carcasses with Turkey and Black Vultures.

So don't we have any eagles in our area? Well, yes, we do. Although Golden Eagles are pretty rare in this part of Texas, we certainly get quite a lot of Bald Eagles. 

Many of these magnificent birds just migrate through our area but some spend most of the year and even nest here. One pair regularly nests in Baytown. The picture below is from last year and shows a parent with one of two chicks raised.

This spring I was surprised to find another pair nesting not a mile from our house in Cypress, northwest of Houston. I wasn't able to get good photos of these birds on the nest but I did get some shots of their juvenile shortly before the birds left the nesting site in the early summer.

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