Good Morning, Friday

May 24, 2013

 Colorado River Refuge beginning at the Twin Bridge Trail: 8:30 AM--11:00 AM.  Partly Sunny and muggy, 80’s F.

 

A Greater Roadrunner greeted me at the parking area of the trailhead.  Preceded west along the river toward the RR bridge and then turned back to make a loop along the Cottonwood Trail, following the road back to start, then driving to the Dragonfly Trail head and out Riverside Drive to Lovers Lane.  Shocker was a Cottonmouth shooting out of a crevice in the rocks underneath the RR trestle.  21 Species heard or seen.

 

Great Egret

Cattle Egret

Black Vulture

Turkey Vulture

Red Shouldered Hawk

Mourning Dove

Greater Roadrunner

Yellow Billed Cuckoo

Ruby Throated Hummingbird

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

White Eyed Vireo

American Crow

Barn Swallow

Carolina Chickadee

Carolina Wren

Northern Mockingbird

Northern Cardinal

Red Winged Blackbird

Painted Bunting

Right for You

 

Right for All Occasions

All at a Discount

Vortex  8x and 10x 42's Diamondback

Vortex 8x32 Diamondback

Vortex 10x50 Diamondback

 

 

 

Visit Kingbirdfeeders.com for all your birding needs!

High Island Rookery

 

One of my favorite birding spots is the High Island Rookery.  Late in the day, after walking a considerable amount and often in the hot sun, this is the place to be.  A shaded path dotted with several observation decks provides a place to sit comfortably.  There is plenty of wildlife to observe.  Over time one can see quite a lot.  Bullfrogs abound and alligators sun in wait.  Many species of birds inhabit the rookery. Yet, there are more who visit.  It’s a grand place during migration in the spring. 

 

Texas has good birding all year round and almost anywhere in the state.  However, a trip to the Upper Texas Coast in spring can be something special.

Kites

 

Yesterday evening I had a half dozen Mississippi Kites overhead.  I was lucky to be outside barbequing some very good chicken thighs.  Looked up while attending to all this; there they were.   Their aerial display, I noticed was about procuring their own dinner.   That’s the common thread in all this.

 

I was all prepared two decades ago to write my master’s dissertation on the “Life History of Mississippi Kites”.  Then I found that John K. Strecker had already done so.  None-the-less, I am still been enamored with this species.  Big red eyes, surrounded by black, set on a white face, really do make them look like bandits.  Yet, these are really fairly benign behaving raptors.  In fact, they feed on grasshoppers and locust and other flying insects.  Not the faire one might expect of raptors.

 

A diagnostic identifier is the first primary.  It is shorter than the second, making it very atypical of raptor wings.