Houston Audublog

Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) Family: Icteridae This week’s Beak of the Week can be found year-round in most of Texas. Common Grackles are lanky blackbirds with iridescent teal heads, purple wings, and olive and purple bodies. Female grackles are less iridescent, and often appear brown. Male Common Grackles will puff their feathers when singing, making them look like dark, angry cotton balls with tails. When courting, males will often chase females alone or in groups with other males. Sometimes, however, a male and a female grackle will fly side by side in a slow and deliberate manner.  When it comes time to build a nest, females will first scout out possible nest locations, occasionally accompanied by their partners. The female may change her mind after she has started to build the nest, and will try another location. Nest building is mainly done by females, and can sometimes take up to six weeks to complete. Male Common Grackles may assist females in nest building, and repa...

By Glenn Olsen There is so much excitement surrounding spring bird migration and rightfully so, as many colorful and interesting birds return to North America for breeding. I enjoy spring migration, but I also look forward to winter birding with equal excitement as spring!  Resident Birds Naturally, we have our resident birds, such as the stunning Cardinals and the Mockingbirds that serenade us even during winter. A couple of other resident birds include the Carolina Chickadee and the House Finch . While House Finches are typically a rose color, interestingly, I have seen them in variants of orange and yellow, which can be attributed to diet. December to March is perhaps the best time to see our resident Great Horned Owls , which can be heard calling after dark as they begin their mating rituals. While listening for Great Horned Owls, be sure to keep an ear out for Eastern Screech-Owls calling as well.  Wintering Birds There are many species of interesting birds that only ...

Sora (Porzana carolina) Family: Rallidae Secretive and cryptic, rails have evolved to avoid detection among the dense reeds of freshwater marshes. The Sora is no exception, although one characteristic sets it apart from other North American rails: its lemon-yellow bill. This striking bill is quite short and stubby, which allows it to primarily eat seeds. The longer, curved bills of Virginia Rails are more suited for invertebrates. These contrasting bill morphologies ensure resource partitioning, meaning these two rail species can coexist in the same habitat. Apart from its distinctive stubby bill, the quail-sized Sora has a black mask, gray neck, and white undertail coverts. Its cryptic brown back pattern helps it disappear in the grasses and it has greenish legs with long toes for walking in uneven marsh terrain. Juvenile Soras lack the yellow bill of the adults and are overall more brown with a buffy chest. They look similar to Yellow Rails, but their backs do not have the clear buff...

Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) Family: Passerellidae Some believe that this week’s Beak of the Week sounds like it’s singing “drink your tea.” The male Eastern Towhee has a black upper body, wings, rump and tail, two white tail spots, white belly, and rufous flanks. Female Eastern Towhees have brown upper bodies, rumps, wings, and tails instead of black ones, and lack tail spots.  This handsome bird has recently been spotted in Chambers, Harris, and Galveston Counties. Eastern Towhees winter in East Texas. You will often find them hopping around on the ground, and in shrubs looking for arthropods, snails, seeds, fruits, and soft, new leaves and buds. These birds are very methodical when foraging for food. They take their time looking for food, will scrape at the leaf litter, hop backwards, and then rush in to snatch their prey. Because they forage in shrubs and leaf litter on the ground, Eastern Towhees prefer habitat with dense undergrowth, and plenty of leaves, such as ...

It feels like it was just yesterday when I was laughing mindlessly with a trash bag in hand and a trash picker in the other. As my friends and I picked up the discarded pieces of plastic and styrofoam along the creek of Edith Moore Sanctuary, I felt as if my body was lost in time, both focused on gathering trash, as well as feeling joyous that everyone around me was having so much fun doing something that would seem otherwise mundane: cleaning up a creek. The only thing is, this was before the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19.  Navigating Volunteer-Work and Coronavirus During the months of sheltering inside for the safety of our community, the extra time we had spent on community service was suddenly staring us in our faces. With little to no in-person volunteer opportunities available, it was hard to imagine how we could help make a difference in our community. Several months later when businesses, parks, and stores began reopening, I felt both relief and shaken anxiety. There ...

Greater White-fronted Goose (Anser albifrons) Family: Anatidae Nothing quite screams January like the Greater White-fronted Goose. Perhaps not, but they do spend the winter season on the Upper Texas Coast and they are rather noisy. They start arriving from their tundra breeding grounds in October and leave again around March and April.  Greater White-fronted Geese are smaller than Canada Geese and have bright orange legs. They are brownish-gray with white undertail coverts, black barring on their belly, and white feathers around their pink bill. In fact, the scientific name albifrons means “white forehead” in Latin. However, juveniles lack this namesake white front as well as the black barring. As they are often seen flying overhead, it is helpful to remember a few in-flight field marks. They have a pale gray upper wing, a white tail tip, and a black tail and rump with a distinctive white “U” shape. Greater White-fronted Geese are very similar in appearance to a Eurasian species, t...

Fork-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus savana) Family: Tyrannidae We at Houston Audubon wish you all a Happy New Year, full of renewal and good luck. And what is luckier than finding a Fork-tailed Flycatcher in Galveston County? This Central and South American species rarely ventures into the United States, but last Wednesday, one made its way into Texas City. This small flycatcher is in the same genus as kingbirds and has similar plumage to the Eastern Kingbird: a black cap, white underside, and gray back. The key difference is its extremely long, forked, black tail, which can reach up to 6 inches in adult males. Fork-tailed Flycatchers have longer tails than Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, which can be as long as 5 inches. Females have slightly shorter tails than males and the tails of juveniles are shorter still. The range of the Fork-tailed Flycatcher extends from Southern Mexico to Argentina. However, they have a tendency to wander north. So although they are rare visitors to the United Sta...