Friday, April 8, 2022

Normal spring day at Progreso Lakes, 4/8/22

If you took away the three new yard warblers and the Hook-billed Kite it's been a pretty dull start to the spring at Progreso Lakes.  But today we finally got our first Painted Bunting for the year.  I'm not sure what's up with the red splotches on the back.  Maybe it's a first year bird.


We still haven't had an Orchard Oriole or a Baltimore Oriole but four Hooded Orioles today were a high number.  These males seemed to be having a territorial battle.

It was a terrible winter for sparrows with only Lincoln's and Savannah.  But we did pick up a Lark Sparrow and a singing Olive Sparrow this past week.



A few months ago I picked up some of the fallen Spanish moss at Anzalduas County Park and brought it home in an attempt to get some of this native bromeliad growing in our yard.  I've done that in the past and it always seems to disappear after a while.  Today I saw why.  Great Kiskadees were stealing it to use in their nest construction.





Still a couple of Lincoln's Sparrows hanging around.


We harvested a big clump of plantains a couple of weeks ago and we've been eating them and feeding them to the birds.  Golden-fronted Woodpeckers and Northern Cardinals really liked them.  This red bird is finishing up the last of them.


So even though we've added four new birds to our yard list this year, our Progreso Lakes yard year list stands at only a paltry 129.  The nest few weeks are prime spring migration so I'm looking forward to what comes next.



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