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 4Northern Shoveler 5Least Grebe 1Pied-billed Grebe 1Neotropic Cormorant 7Great Blue Heron 1Great Egret 4Snowy Egret 1Roseate Spoonbill 2American Kestrel 1American Coot 2Rock Pigeon 8Eurasian Collared-Dove 6Mourning Dove 3Golden-fronted Woodpecker 1Great Kiskadee 3Loggerhead Shrike 1Northern Mockingbird 8Curve-billed Thrasher 2European Starling 6Pyrrhuloxia 2Great-tailed Grackle 35House 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.
