Readers’ wildlife photos

July 13, 2024 • 8:15 am

Well, we have three batches of photos left, and that leaves two after this post. Don’t make me beg!

Today we have some lovely bird photos, including DUCKS, from Damon Williford in Bay City, Texas. Damon’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here are several bird photos that I captured at a local park back, Resoft County Park, in April. Resoft County Park is located in the southern portion of the Houston Metropolitan area of Texas. It’s a nice place for photography due to the presence of several ponds, an active heron rookery, and the fact that most of the birds are accustomed to humans.

Male Wood Duck (Aix sponsa):

Female Wood Duck:

A pair of Wood Ducks:

A pair of Black-bellied Whistling-ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis). This is a Neotropical species that has undergone rapid expansion within Texas since the 1980s:

The Egyptian Goose (Alopochen aegyptiaca) is a non-native species that has become established in several cities and towns in Texas:

A pair of Egyptian geese:

An adult Egyptian goose with goslings:

The park hosts both wild and domestic Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). The bird pictured might be a drake of the wild type. I’m not good at differentiating wild mallards from wild-domestic hybrids or the breeds that are closer to the wild type:

Domestic Mallard:

American Coot (Fulica americana):

Western Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis):

An adult Great Egret (Ardea alba) with nestlings:

Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis):

11 thoughts on “Readers’ wildlife photos”

  6. Nice you got one of the Great Egret with its nestlings
    The Eastern Bluebird is a beauty. Thank you.

  11. Here in Australia, I have always understood that the cattle egret was a new-comer to the continent, most likely following the expansion/creation of farm lands. I thought I would see what Wikipedia had to say about the matter -and WOW!

    Egrets seem to be trying to out-colonize humanity!

    The western cattle egret has undergone one of the most rapid and wide-reaching natural expansions of any bird species.[23] It was originally native to parts of southern Spain and Portugal, tropical and subtropical Africa, and humid tropical and subtropical Asia. At the end of the 19th century, it began expanding its range into southern Africa, first breeding in the Cape Province in 1908.[24] Cattle egrets were first sighted in the Americas on the boundary of Guiana and Suriname in 1877, having apparently flown across the Atlantic Ocean.[9][14] In the 1930s, the species is thought to have become established in that area.[25] It is now widely distributed across Brazil and was first discovered in the northern region of the country in 1964, feeding along with buffalos.[26]

    The species first arrived in North America in 1941 (these early sightings were originally dismissed as escapees), bred in Florida in 1953, and spread rapidly, breeding for the first time in Canada in 1962.[24] It is now commonly seen as far west as California. It was first recorded breeding in Cuba in 1957, in Costa Rica in 1958, and in Mexico in 1963, although it was probably established before then.[25] In Europe, the species had historically declined in Spain and Portugal, but in the latter part of the 20th century, it expanded back through the Iberian Peninsula, and then began to colonise other parts of Europe, southern France in 1958, northern France in 1981, and Italy in 1985.[24] Breeding in the United Kingdom was recorded for the first time in 2008, only a year after an influx seen in the previous year.[27][28] In 2008, cattle egrets were also reported as having moved into Ireland for the first time.[29] This trend has continued and cattle egrets have become more numerous in southern Britain with influxes in some numbers during the nonbreeding seasons of 2007/08 and 2016/17. They bred in Britain again in 2017, following an influx in the previous winter, and may become established there.[30][31]

    In Australia, the colonisation began in the 1940s, with the eastern cattle egret establishing itself in the north and east of the continent.[32] It began to regularly visit New Zealand in the 1960s. Since 1948, the cattle egret has been permanently resident in Israel. Prior to 1948, it was only a winter visitor.[33]

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