Migration has already started here in the Big Country with the following sightings:
SeaBee Park, south end of Lake Fort Phantom:
- Great Blue Heron 1
- Great Egret 30
- Snowy Egret 50
- Little Blue Heron 2 , mottled back & wings
- Cattle Egret 4
- Green Heron 1
- White-faced Ibis 4
- Black-necked Stilt 6
- American Avocet 2
- Hudsonian Godwit 1
- Lesser Yellowlegs 1
- Willet 1
- Turkey Vulture 1
- Mississippi Kite 1
- Swainson’s Hawk 1
- Red-tailed Hawk 1
- Killdeer 2
- Black-necked Stilt 2
- White-winged Dove 1
- Mourning Dove 1
- Northern Mockingbird 1
- European Starling 5
- Red-winged Blackbird 10
- Great-tailed Grackle 20
Abilene Wastewater Treatment Plant
- Turkey Vulture 1
- Swainson’s Hawk 2
- Red-tailed Hawk 1
- Killdeer 10
- American Avocet 3; the baby was still quite downy, though wading and feeding independently – coverts still not contours
- Unidentified Sandpipers (too far away)
- Eurasian Collared-Dove 1
- Mourning Dove 1
- Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
- Ladder-backed Woodpecker 1
- Western Kingbird 10
- Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 8
- Loggerhead Shrike 1
- Barn Swallow 8
- Northern Mockingbird 2
- Red-winged Blackbird 10, heard only in grackle marsh/reeds
- Great-tailed Grackle 200, ginormous roost on the south pond
- House Sparrow
Sightings by Lorie Black, Dan Symonds, Heidi Trudell, Jeremy, Kathy Hampton, and Ted Goshulak