Hi Katie,
My teammate Craig Hensley and I are working on a project with the Oaks &
Prairies JV to study urban LOSH in Central Texas. We've got a good number of
nesting birds in Old Settlers Park in Round Rock, a suburb of Austin, TX, and
have seen them/had reports of them in the non-breeding season in several cities
along the I-35 corridor (which used to be primarily Blackland Prairie). Mostly,
we're finding them in areas that are in the process of development, where
neighborhoods and shopping malls are interspersed with undeveloped ag/pasture
that hasn't yet been built on. We're mostly limited to public lands, but within
that context, we're finding them in parks that are mostly open grassy areas
with smaller, denser trees. They are not shy about setting up nests right next
to sports fields (soccer, baseball) or even in parking lots if the tree meets
their criteria.
While I was living up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I had a pair nesting in
Valley Ranch in Irving, TX, and we would sometimes see them in the Trinity
River basin (mostly treeless, mown areas between levees) near downtown Dallas.
Best of luck with your project!
Tania
Tania Homayoun, Ph.D.
Texas Nature Trackers Biologist
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
4200 Smith School Rd
Austin, TX 78744
O: 512-389-8253
C: 512-656-1222
tania.homayoun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From: eloshwg-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <eloshwg-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of
Katie Maddox
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2022 10:24 AM
To: eloshwg@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [eloshwg] Urban Shrike Observations
ALERT: This email came from an external source. Do not open attachments or
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Hi Working Group members!
For those who don't know me, I'm Chris Hill's current master's student. My
thesis focuses on LOSH and their interaction with urban habitats. It's been a
few years since someone from the Hill lab did a quick survey about Loggerhead
Shrikes living in predominantly urban/developed areas. Currently,
urban-dwelling LOSH have been documented in Arizona, Louisiana, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Texas.
I'd love to hear from you if you have any observations of LOSH in urban areas
so I can update our running list. Please feel free to reach out to me directly
with any and all observations/anecdotes!
Thank you for very much for your help,
Katie
Katie Maddox (she/her)
M.S. Student, Coastal Marine and Wetland Studies
Coastal Carolina University
kamaddo1@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:kamaddo1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
