[texbirds] Anahuac baby boom
- From: Carolyn Dill <carolyn_dill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2012 18:50:21 -0700 (PDT)
If you love little fuzzy baby birds, head over to the Anahuac WLR. There were
numerous babies with their mothers around 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and the marshes
are lovely right now with abundant water lilies.
Other birds of note for those who don't want to read the whole baby list: 2
King Rails (they come out to preen in first morning light out in the open and
soon retreat to the reeds to get breakfast I assume), one Marsh Wren, one
yellow billed cuckoo, NO sparrows (how could that be?) one nighthawk on its
favorite post I see every time I come here, lots of black terns (but none in
black plumage), three gull billed terns, WOOD STORKS ( on road to Yellow Rail
Marsh). Many Least Bitterns everywhere and in about in equal numbers with many
Green Herons.
Of babies: Purple Gallinules outnumber Common Moorhens. Seen at least three or
four families, one a group of six fully feathered fledglings, flock of three
black downy chicks and a third with four, bigger black downy chicks. Moorhens
are mostly downy young, in varying sizes (ages).
Black necked Stilts have many young, each family has different sizes of
young. One set of five downy gray young following Fulvous Whistling Duck mom.
Other birds have fledglings that look quite adult: eastern kingbirds, orchard
orioles, barn swallows, boat tailed grackles, white faced ibis, mottled ducks,
green heron (its young still had fluff on top of its head and it was doing an
excellent imitation of a fluffed out cattail reed head, hiding in plain sight.)
The orioles were a group of three siblings that stayed together, parents not
seen nearby.
Killdeer were busy feigning broken wings, to lead me away front their hidden
clutch of eggs They were successful as I never found their eggs even though I
used binoculars to scan the roadsides.
Juvenile ibis look so green I'd have called them Green Ibis if this was Central
America. They are very slightly smaller or leaner than the adults with them.
BTW, between Liberty and Dayton, one Swallow tailed Kite.
Great summer day!
Carolyn DillHouston
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