Bird of the Week 9

Female

I think you will like this bird of the week.  It is one of my favorite birds in this family of birds.  It is the Oklahoma State Bird (big hint:=)  I was very please when we finally found some, the male in the video was on the wires in front of a bank building in a small Texas town. The female was photographed in Baytown Nature Center, Baytown, Texas.   This bird is a semi-tropical bird and only spends the summer in a couple of southern states and as we were finding them they were already migrating. In one refuge in Texas we saw at least 25 of them slowly moving south to Central and South America for the winter.  I think there is one or two records of one showing up in Oregon. 

It's hard to believe that this segment of the Great Bird Race is coming to a close.  We are currently in Colorado and I am having trouble finding any new birds for the list.  Tomorrow as we continue to head home I will be looking for another life bird but I do not have much faith that I will find it.  If I do I might make it a bird of the week.  So watch for my post in the middle of the week and I will post all the rest of the birds from the trip up to that date.  After that the list will be shorter for a while because all the common birds have been seen as well as some pretty uncommon ones. I still do not have very many shore birds or ducks.  I have plenty of birds to share for bird of the week and in January I will be heading back to Texas and then if all goes as planned, spending time on the lower Rio Grande River as well as refuges in New Mexico and Arizona which should add at least another 100 birds to the list.  But that will be next year.  I hope to drop in next month and see  what you have done with the list on the map and take a look at your journals.  Happy birding. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSpwpA2LUmk&feature=youtu.be