This past April I visited my home state, Texas, timed for the spring migration.  I’ve fully processed about three days of about eight, and still have hundreds of photos to go.  I’m still taking photos of birds in the yard but it’s time to move on with my posts and display some of the photos I took in Texas.

Most, if not all, of these photos were taken outside Austin in my sister’s yard… meticulously landscaped for wildlife.  I had plenty of birds to photograph, but the migration wasn’t what any of us thought it could have been.  Theories were that the weather diverted the birds around Central Texas or that the migration was delayed.  Whatever the cause we didn’t see the variety of species we have seen in the past, so that was somewhat of a disappointment.  However it didn’t mean that there weren’t birds to photograph, so here are some of the birds that did happen by.

Here are a couple of favorites that are year-round residents in Central Texas… Northern cardinals…

Next are a couple of spring migrants, Nashville warblers…

Here is a photo of a male Lesser goldfinch.  The Lesser goldfinches are year-round residents of Central Texas, but their cousins, our American goldfinches are not.  The American goldfinches are migratory residents of Texas but curiously, year-round residents here although much more plentiful in the summer months.  The female Lesser goldfinches are very similar in appearance to the female American goldfinches.

Here’s a photo of the scourge of the bird world, a male Brown-headed cowbird.  This bird is found in breeding months here in Western Washington.  The female cowbird usually lays a single egg in the nest of other species.  The young cowbird matures faster than other birds which usually results in the deaths of the legitimate offspring of the parents.  Just this last week I had a pair of White-crowned sparrows, the first that have nested in the immediate vicinity, feeding a single juvenile cowbird (only!).  The young cowbird was substantially bigger than either of its uncomprehending surrogate parents.

And finally, a male Black-chinned hummingbird which is a spring/summer migrant to Central Texas.  If you look very carefully you can see a few pixels of the color of this bird’s purple gorget.