We have an unusual winter visitor this year likely due to the drought. The Harris's Sparrow usually winters in central and north Texas. Photographer Margaret Sloan was very surprised to find several in her back yard. The bird shown here is immature.
The Harris's Sparrow is a large sparrow more the size of a small songbird like a Northern Cardinal than house sparrows. The photo above is a young male who is just starting to get his black bib under his chin. These birds maintain a strict pecking order for food with adult males, the larger the black bib, the higher the pecking order. In fact, dyeing a bird’s bib causes him to rise in pecking order. The photo below shows a male much higher in the pecking order because of his large black bib.
Harris's Sparrows winter along hedgerows, shelterbelts, agricultural fields, weed patches, and pastures in the Central US. It only breeds in Canada and nowhere else in the world at the edge of tundra or boreal forests.
It feeds primarily on the ground, picks food from the ground, and scratches some in litter with both feet. It will come to feeders.
The Harris's and the White-throated Sparrow (which has a striking color pattern) are two wintering sparrows in Texas, but the White-throated, also posted this month, is more common in Fort Bend.
We've been getting questions about squirrel-proof feeders. For more on this subject and a hilarious video on the National Wildlife Federation website, click here.
Read about other birding "Novel Events" in Fort Bend.
Photos copyrighted by Quail Valley resident and international birder Margaret Sloan. View her international and national bird pictures by pressing this link. View her full photo album of local birds, Birds of Quail Valley by pressing this link.
Learn how to attract birds to your garden, enjoy the Quail Valley Garden's Club visit and tour of Margaret's backyard.
Blog edited by Janice Scanlan.
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Tony Estus writes that in late December his wife thought she saw a Flamingo and basically he told her it must have been a Roseate Spoonbill. A few days later, Tony saw a bird take off from the pond on the left side of the Eldorado #4 tee boxes. He got a good look and then had to agree with his wife, that she was right and not crazy like he told her she was. Seeing is believing! Ironically I (Janice Scanlan) saw what I thought was a Flamingo at quite a distance in MacNaughton Park in late December, but I'm having eye surgery in February and my far vision is not very dependable . . . but the height and bill shape were just too like a Flamingo even at a distance. All About Birds does not include the Flamingo (American, Caribbean, or Greater). Where they exist (and there used to be a group on Red Fish Island in the Houston Ship Channel ten or fifteen years ago) they are considered to be escapees of the Greater Flamingoes. They seem to be fairly regular wading birds in the Florida Everglades, but still escapees. Since they need a brackish or salt water diet, they likely escaped from a zoo or a private collector. Moody Gardens has a fairly large collection as does the Houston Zoo.
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