[texbirds-freelists] [texbirds] Katy Prairie this morning, both plovers and sparrows

From: Joseph Kennedy <josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx>
To: texbirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2012 19:25:07 -0500
Did a quick loop through western Harris and Waller counties this morning.
In general my comments of last week continue with not many birds about in
Harris county and good numbers in Waller county. The heavy sand hauling for
hw 99 continues to ensure birds are not seen along several roads.

Scissor-tailed flycatchers are paired in most cases and seem territorial.
For the second week, I saw no kestrels and red-tailed hawks were down to 3.
One bird had just caught a still kicking king rail along the western end of
Hebert where it appeared that there was no rail habitat but the ditch could
have been damp.

The rice is up but all the fields were dry and had zero birds. Likewise the
sod farm out Harper's Church road was being watered and had both grassy and
partly grassy areas but no birds. The habitat looks so good with the
natural grass, that grasspipers anyway were happy. The warm spring has
resulted in several hay balers mowed before easter and more mowers were
heading out as the dew dried.

Starting on Pennick road, many fields had good numbers of golden and upland
plovers. A higher proportion of goldens were in the flatter areas and vice
versa with hilly tracts that had mainly uplands. No shortage of either
bird. I have often wondered how the uplands etc avoid predators living in
very open tracts that have good numbers of raptors that would be happy to
have plover for lunch ala the king rail. I was able to watch one bird as it
watched a turkey vulture approach. The upland walked near a taller tuft
clump of vegetation, hunkered down in it with lowered head and raised tail.
Very unbirdy silhouette. Carefully watched the vulture until it departed
and then resumed feeding.

Paul Rushing park had no birds visible from the parking lots other than
killdeer, meadowlarks and 3 brewer's blackbirds. Lots of the blackbirds out.

Pattison Road has a good mix of birds out further south where it is wet.
Many gadwall and teal were mixed in with dowitchers and yellowlegs with
uplands and goldens across the road in the grass. Sparrows, mainly savannah
showed up here and there were patches of white-crowned sparrows in many
spots. New white-crowns as most were white-crowned compared to a week ago
when most were not. Perhaps adult birds winter further south topsy-turvy to
the normal wintering pattern where adults winter closer to breeding grounds
or they may be a different population that molts prior to going north?

Wandering around I did find a couple each of field and vesper sparrows plus
the larger flock of vesper sparrows on Baethe. Found no lark buntings or
Harris's sparrows despite much trying.

By late in the morning things got very quiet. A couple of broad-winged
hawks were about but seemed to be moving locally rather than migrating.

--
Joseph C. Kennedy
on Buffalo Bayou in West Houston
Josephkennedy36@xxxxxxxxx

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[texbirds-freelists] [texbirds] Katy Prairie this morning, both plovers and sparrows

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