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I was hoping that the colder weather would bring lots of winter birds onto the campus but this doesn't seem to have happened, at least so far.
One reason why we don't have as many birds as we used to is habitat destruction, with more of the campus been devoured by parking lots each year.
Another reason is that ducks and other water birds now largely shun our two retention ponds in favor of the much larger one in the new Precinct 3 park just across Barker Cypress Road. So if I want to see birds such as Ruddy Duck, Ring-necked Duck and Lesser Scaup (below), I now have to go over to the park.
The photos below show a selection of the birds I've seen on the campus this week.
Black Vulture
American Robin
European Starling
Loggerhead Shrike
White-winged Dove
Unfortunately, I haven't yet managed to photograph the flock of Cedar Waxwings that moved in over the holidays. I hope to get some photos of these beautiful birds in the next few days. I also hope that the flock will keep increasing until it reaches the size (1000+ birds) that it reached last winter and the one before that.
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On Sunday we headed down to Galveston because we had promised our grandsons a boat ride. It was bitterly cold on the Bolivar ferry but the Laughing Gulls and Forster's Terns provided plenty of entertainment. While most of the gulls concentrated on trying to catch the bread and chips being thrown from the stern of the ferry by children, some focused instead on catching fish churned up in the boat's wake.
Our fellow passengers included Rock Pigeons and Great-tailed Grackles (below).
The landing area at Bolivar had several American White Pelicans and lots of Brown Pelicans (below).
As usual in the winter, there were also a few Red-breasted Mergansers.
When we got to the beach, we found that the tide was out and so only a few birds were within camera range.
The occasional Ring-billed Gull (below) was mixed in with the hordes of Laughing Gulls.
A couple of Sanderlings and Willets (below) were wandering nearby.
A Red Knot was a nice sighting.
Close to it was a Dunlin and a Long-billed Curlew.
I watched for a while as the Curlew strolled across the sand and probed in it for food.
I was surprised to see that it sometimes buried its entire bill in the sand in its hunt for prey.
Unfortunately, it was too cold to stay long and so we left the beach and headed back to Galveston for lunch at Mario's on the seawall.
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I haven't posted for more than a week because our daughter and grandsons have been visiting from Barcelona and they have kept us very busy.
Before they arrived, I managed to fit in a couple of hours' birding at the Thompson Fishing Camp in Baytown, where I was hoping to add a few new species to my 2014 Harris County list.
The main jetty at the camp was crowded with gulls. Most of these were Laughing Gulls.
I scanned the others, looking for a Lesser Black-backed Gull, but there were only a few Ring-billed Gulls and several Herring Gulls (below).
The occasional Royal Tern was sharing the jetty with the gulls.
A couple of Ruddy Turnstones, which wandered along the jetty, made a new addition to my county list.
So too did a Red-breasted Merganser.
Further out on the water were four Buffleheads, a Horned Grebe and a Common Goldeneye (below), all of which were new to my county year birds.
As always at the camp, there were lots of Brown Pelicans, most of which were busy grooming.
Another birder, Dennis Cook, very kindly offered me a ride on his boat.
We headed over towards the local dump in hopes of finding some more interesting gulls. There were certainly plenty of gulls around - thousands of them, in fact.
Unfortunately, all the ones we could ID were Laughing Gulls and the other species we had seen at the bait camp.
Although my trip to Baytown didn't produce any unusual sightings, I enjoyed the range of birds that I saw there. And I was pleased to finally get my county year list over the 200 species mark.
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Wednesday was a pleasant day at the college.
As I drove across the campus, I spotted an Osprey grooming on top of a utility pylon.
We used to see Ospreys here only in the winter but now we have one who is a year-round resident. It spends part of the time on the campus and part in the Precinct 3 park on the other side of Barker Cypress Road.
Later in the day I was walking to the college cafeteria when a Blue-headed Vireo flew into a tree right beside me. It was a new year bird for me but unfortunately I wasn't carrying a camera.
At lunchtime I had a very quick walk around the nature trail boardwalk. All I could see and hear were House Wrens and Yellow-rumped Warblers - and, of course, Northern Mockingbirds (below).
Then I heard a mewing sound and up popped a Gray Catbird in the middle of a bush. I couldn't photograph this bird either because my camera wouldn't focus on it.
At the end of the day I drove across the parking lots and noticed a white blob on a lamppost. A Great Egret. Although I see at least one Great Egret at work virtually every day, I couldn't resist stopping to take a photo.
Any work day that starts with an Osprey and ends with a Great Egret can't be bad!
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I spent some time on the weekend watching out for birds in our yards. Unfortunately, we still aren't seeing many residents or visitors. Carolina Wrens and Carolina Chickadees are still present most days, and House Sparrows (below) flock to our feeders and birdbath.
The birdbath also attracts the occasional Yellow-rumped Warbler.
I took a quick drive up to the Longwood retention pond to see if the Bald Eagles were around. There was no sign of activity at the next but one of the pair of Eagles was perched nearby.
I also took a much longer drive, this time up to Lakeside Park in The Woodlands. I was hoping to see the juvenile Trumpeter Swan that had been hanging out there. It didn't take long to find the bird. It was a misty morning and the bird was at quite a distance from the bank, so I only managed to get a couple of record photos. Still, it was a great bird to see in our area!
Dee and I had only seen one Trumpeter Swan before, and that was back in the 1990s in British Columbia.
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Sunday morning I was up and out of the house well before dawn, heading for the Katy Prairie. I had four specific objectives:
1. Look for Short-eared Owls off Porter Road
2. See if Harris's Sparrows were back on Longenbaugh
3. Try to find an Inca Dove on Longenbaugh
4. Check out Meadowlarks at Warren Ranch Lake to see if any were the Western species.
As it happened, I had picked a bad morning for birding because the weather was cold and drizzly. I scanned the fields on both sides of Porter Road for 30 minutes but saw no sign of any owls.
I was luckier on Longenbaugh. As soon as I arrived at the Bear Creek bridge, I spotted four Harris's Sparrows hanging out with some White-crowned Sparrows around the north side of the bridge. (In my experience, this is the most reliable place to find Harris's in our area.)
I scanned the backs of the creek for Inca Doves for a while but had no luck. So I decided to move on. However, I'd only driven a few yards when I noticed a bird on the road ahead. My first Inca Dove in Harris County in 2014!
By the time I got to Warren Ranch Lake the weather was slightly better and I had good views of a variety of ducks and 100+ American White Pelicans.
There were 7-8 Meadowlarks also. I examined and photographed all of them very carefully. Unfortunately, all of them turned out to be Eastern Meadowlarks.
On my way home I drove back along Longenbaugh and found that half-a-dozen Harris's Sparrows were busy feeding in a small tree several hundred yards east of the creek. Although the weather was still poor, it had improved enough for slightly better photos than the ones I had taken earlier.
So I had struck out on the owls and Western Meadowlarks but I had achieved my other two goals.
BTW, for the past three years my Harris County list has topped 200 species each year. Sunday's Inca Dove took my 2014 county list to 196 species, which is not bad considering how little birding I've done this year. However, I'll certainly be trying to add at least another four species in the next three weeks.
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After months of almost no birds on the CyFair campus, a few are starting to show up. Yesterday the trees had lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers, some White-throated Sparrows and a couple of Ruby-crowned Kinglets and an Eastern Phoebe. There was a flyover by a Northern Flicker, the second one I've seen in the past few weeks.
A small flock of American Robins flew in and argued with our resident Northern Mockingbirds over who had perching rights to which trees.
A little pishing stirred up a pair of House Wrens, one of which stayed up just long enough for me to grab a photo.
The campus lakes haven't attracted any ducks or other water birds yet this year. I suspect that any birds that do fly over our area will now ignore our lakes in favor of the larger lake in the new Precinct 3 park just across Barker Cypress Road from the college. That lake continues to attract a nice range of water birds: Pied-billed Grebes, American Coots, Lesser Scaup, Ring-necked Ducks, Ruddy Ducks, Green-winged Teal etc. It also attracts Laughing Gulls and Ring-billed Gulls (below).
The other day the grass around the lake had a small flock of American Pipits, the first Pipits I've seen since last winter.
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