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Other Nations: A Naturalist’s Blog about Buffalo Bayou
by Alisa Kline

Posts Tagged: Bird Watching

Feb 20

What’s for dinner

I don’t know how many creatures live in Buffalo Bayou Park, but I do know that we have almost exactly as many as the Park can support. If the Park could support more critters, they would have been here already.  When you run into critters in the Park, they are not there for rest and relaxation…. Read more »

Feb 13

Two Egrets Hunting

We have just one Park and just one bayou within it, but lots of different shore birds find ways of staying fed on the same basic diet (fish, amphibians, insects and crustaceans.) You might imagine, given that this, that our Park is a battleground of all against all.  But that’s not what happens. Each animal… Read more »

Jan 09

Killer!

It’s a brand new year and this blog is starting it off with a bang.  We have a pair of loggerhead shrikes in the Park. Wait, you’re not jumping up and down with glee? Then let me explain. Loggerhead shrikes are cool birds for a bunch of reasons I will get into. But the reason… Read more »

Dec 05

One Weird Egret

Henry David Thoreau wrote: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. I am now persuaded he was speaking of a singular great egret who has indeed stepped far away,… Read more »

Nov 28

Ol’ Blue Eyes

Cormorants are not rare, and until I spent some time photographing this pair on Monday, I didn’t think they were particularly lovely. They were interesting but aesthetically challenged. Boy, was I wrong. Up close, they are gorgeous birds. These are Neotropic cormorants. They are a Central and South American bird; the only places in the… Read more »

Aug 29

So what is a heron, anyway?

I am yet again going to write about herons. Do not blame me. Blame the juvenile Tricolored Heron that was standing, almost invisible, in the run-out of the McGovern Cascade.  She was so well camouflaged that I noticed her only because I wanted a better look at two turtles with whom she shared the log… Read more »

Aug 22

Green Heron Hunting

I may have to rename this blog, “What do Herons Eat?”  Last week, we discussed night herons. This week we turn to Green Herons. I didn’t plan to make August heron month, but I found this bird not too far from the Buffalo Bayou Partnership offices at Allen’s Landing. It was her idea to commandeer… Read more »

Aug 15

The Other Night Heron

I had never seen a night heron until I moved to Houston. I first noticed them when I played softball. They were the large birds wading around in the puddles beyond center field. You might imagine my proficiency at softball from the fact that I spent my time facing the wrong way.  We also had… Read more »

Aug 01

Hawk v. Grackle

Baby birds behave in unexpected ways. This is because they are idiots. I have mentioned this before in passing,  but this post will be almost entirely about the incompetence of juvenile birds and referring to two in particular: a Coopers Hawk and a Great-Tailed Grackle. It is a heroic tale of peril, escape, and maternal… Read more »

Jul 18

Still Herons

Almost every time I walk under the bat bridge I see a Black-crowned Night Heron (BCNH) or two and they are almost always standing still. I imagined that they were waiting for a baby bat or egg, or who knows what, to fall at their feet and provide a meal. These were apparently lazy birds… Read more »

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“[Animals] are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

—Henry Beston, The Outermost House

 

For sightings, questions or comments email blog@alisakline.com.

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