Urban birding

 

The car needs an oil change.  I need a walk.  There are birds.  Time for some multi-tasking.

 

I drive to the shop in Edinburg and drop off the car.  I walk through a mix of commercial, residential, and agricultural property, punctuated by irrigation canals.  It is overcast, foggy, misty, with a light rain off and on.  It is not cold though.  It’s T-shirt weather.

 

I walk for an hour and a half, 4 ½ miles, and see 23 species of birds:

 

Blue-winged Teal  4

Northern Shoveler  5

Least Grebe  1

Pied-billed Grebe  1

Neotropic Cormorant  7

Great Blue Heron  1

Great Egret  4

Snowy Egret  1

Roseate Spoonbill  2

American Kestrel  1

American Coot  2

Rock Pigeon  8

Eurasian Collared-Dove  6

Mourning Dove  3

Golden-fronted Woodpecker  1

Great Kiskadee  3

Loggerhead Shrike  1

Northern Mockingbird  8

Curve-billed Thrasher  2

European Starling  6

Pyrrhuloxia  2

Great-tailed Grackle  35

House Sparrow  50

 

I buy back the car and head home.  Missions accomplished.

 

 

Not an overwhelming amount of birds; like at a wildlife refuge, but it wasn’t all House Sparrows either.  Some pretty good birds for a neighborhood.