Rewilding My Lot

I prefer to do my gardening sessions first thing in the morning. That fits my personal body clock (I usually wake before sunrise), and it’s the coolest time of day.

Consequently, I am often outside as the first light is showing, which is about 30 minutes before sunrise. I have noticed that during the dawn period, there are hundreds of birds that fly over our house, some traveling from the north and some from the northwest of here.

I am not very good at bird identification, so the only ones I could recognize certainly were Cattle Egrets (more on them below). But here’s what I observed on the day that I put down my gardening tools and just watched the flyover.

• 15 mins before sunrise: Low flying swooping and chattering individuals and pairs from the north. Maybe swallows or swifts?
• Sunrise: Groups of white Cattle Egrets from the northwest, flying higher up
• Sunrise: Groups of smaller dark birds from the northwest, flying at the same height as the Cattle Egrets
• Just after sunrise: Lower flying dark birds from the north in small groups, chattering as they went
• Just after sunrise: Dragonflies appearing from the north

It wasn’t easy to photograph the birds, but here are a couple of pictures of the Cattle Egrets. In the first photo, note that there are incoming formations in the background as well.

My theory regarding the Cattle Egrets is that they are coming from their overnight roost at a large rookery that is 4 miles northwest of here, at the junction of I-10 and TX-46, and then flying over us to open or farm/ranch land that is east and south of here.

I noticed the rookery a few months ago, and I have visited a few times since to view it. It’s an impressive sight, but I do wonder what damage it’s doing to the trees, each of which is home to hundreds of nests. Certainly you can smell it from all the way across the frontage road!