Rain birds

It's been a soggy, soggy week here so far. My yard has gotten over ten inches of rain and the ground is well saturated.

The few times that I've been outside during this weather, the birds have been quiet, mostly sticking to the cover of the leaves. Late this afternoon after the rains stopped - at least for awhile - and the sun came out briefly, I saw American Robins running around the front yard, probably searching for earthworms. The heavy rains often flush them to the top of the ground and sometimes drown them, creating an easy meal for the birds.

A little later, as I was working in my study, I looked out the window to see a Ruby-throated Hummingbird feeding on the shrimp plant blooms there. A bird's gotta eat, come rain or come shine!

A year ago during our terrible drought, the birds and I would have welcomed a spell of weather like this, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Now, I think both the rain birds and I are ready for some sunshine.

Wildlife tragedy/Wildlife bonanza

When I drive from my house to nearby Tomball, south on State Highway 249, I pass a couple of nice-sized little ponds on the right.  If it is early morning, I will usually see one or two herons or egrets there, having their breakfast.

Yesterday, we were headed into Tomball in the early morning for our regular Monday breakfast date and I looked toward the ponds as I always do.  I blinked and looked again.  I couldn't believe my eyes!  There were hundreds of water birds there!

These ponds like most ponds in the area are drying up, stranding all the fish and other water-based life there.  The egrets had discovered this and had flown in by the scores, followed quickly by other kinds of water birds.

I didn't have my camera with me when I passed by yesterday, but I had to go back into town at mid-day today and decided to take my camera with me.  There were not nearly as many birds there at that time of day, but there were still well over a hundred, feeding in the two ponds, where normally there might have been one or two.

(I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures.  They were taken from the shoulder of the highway, a good distance away.)

  In this section of one of the ponds, you can see a good number of Great Egrets and smaller Snowy Egrets.

These egrets are standing on top of what was the bank of the pond.  You can see how little water there is left.

Another shot showing the bank.  Normally, the water would reach up to the line of grass.

Just a few inches of water left where these Great Egrets are standing.

  In addition to the egrets, several Roseate Spoonbills had gathered to partake in the feast.

At the smaller of the two ponds, which is now almost entirely dry, it wasn't just water birds that had gathered. About a score of Black Vultures had flown in to help clean up the decay left by the receding waters.

A few White Ibises had also come to the banquet.

The drying ponds provide a brief bounty for these birds, but what will they do when the ponds are gone?  Meantime, in spite of the birds' good fortune, it is hard not to feel sad for all those little fish and other water critters trapped in their drying ponds with no possibility of escape.  Perhaps the best they can hope for is to become a quick meal for a hungry bird.  Better that than being left to gasp out one's last in the merciless sun.

Multiply these two ponds by the hundreds and probably thousands all over the state that will soon be only a memory in this worst-in-our-history drought and you can begin to imagine the dimensions of the wildlife holocaust that we are facing.  It is not only the birds, fish, and frogs that depend on these ponds.  They are life itself for deer, rabbits, coyotes, raccoons, foxes, o'possums, bobcats, and all manner of other animals.  Many have already died.  More will follow.  The vultures will continue to eat well.