It is bird watching season again. Actually here on the coast it is always bird watching season. I put up a bird feeder and a duck blind for myself two weeks ago. It took the birds 2 weeks to watch the bird feeder and the duck blind. Today in the rain they decided they were safe and I was very close to them. Closer than I ever got to be in previous years. It is cold here…in the 40’s. Great morning and in my wait I got 3 types of birds and plenty of squirrels.

The first bird is the Mourning Dove or what we call the Love Bird. You can tell what he is by his long tail feathers and his back feathers are outlined in white. These birds are loyal and have the same partner for life. He and his partner will produce 5 or 6 babies a year. Incubation is 14 days and the new babies stay in the nest for another 14 days. They leave home at age 14 days. It is a protected species and I don’t know why. Anytime I look outside they are there. She is considered a game species but I don’t know anyone that ever ate one.

The next bird is about half the size of the dove. He is a Cactus Wren. Where I am is the most eastern edge of his territory. They normally nest in the heavily barbed cholla cactus and I have only seen a few of those cactus in this part of the coast. Instead they nest in barbed underbrush here. Once they build their domed nest they pretty much keep it for their life. They do not keep a lifelong partner. They are the biggest of the wren family but even at that they are never more than about 8 inches long. Most that I see seem smaller than that. They are becoming rare in Texas but I have a huge population of them. They form families and remain with their family for life. The family could be up to 15 or 20 of them. They are together wherever they go.

The next 2 are either blackbirds or cow birds. I don’t know which. It is cowbirds that have usually a brown head and a black body. The ones I have are just the opposite. Most likely this is a grackle. He is huge and cow birds are not this big. The grackle is 18 to 19 inches long and his wingspan is up to 25 inches. These boat-tailed grackles are rare and only live here along the gulf coast. They live from here, all the way through Florida and all along the east coast. They are loud and fight each other and other birds for food. One of the pictures is one with a useless leg. I am sure he was a great warrior but not anymore. He gets out of the way when others approach. Look at how vicious they can look. The one with the eye contact saw me and was trying to threaten me. Actually he initials did not know I was a human and as soon as I moved and he saw my eyes he was gone.

The last picture is a cow bird next to the grackle. I only got one shot of the cow bird and the grackle realized he was there and attempted to attack. You can clearly see the difference in their size. Well the rain is getting pretty heavy so that is it for today. The rest of the food will go to the squirrel.

Have a good weekend everyone...