UT Southwestern Medical Center Rookery: March 2016

I'd seen chatter about recent activity at the UT Southwestern Medical Center Rookery. With sunny skies and no other plans this morning, it was time to head back and check things out for myself.

Great Egrets were in abundance.  There seemed to be as many of them now as I'd seen last spring.

A couple dozen Black-crowned Night-Herons were sprinkled throughout the reserve as well.  And also like last spring, they didn't give me as much to work with as I wanted.  They stuck to the higher parts of the trees where the branches were denser.

I was glad to see many of the leaves starting to appear.  The additional color was better than just bare branches.

Breeding plumage is always a nice bonus.

There were no Snowy Egrets or Cattle Egrets to be seen yet.  I assume they migrate back at a later time than the others.

With the cooler temperatures and no chicks yet, there was none of the stench of bird poop and regurgitated fish that had marked my previous visits.

There was quite a bit of nest building going on.  I have to imagine there are eggs in many of them already, given the fairly large chicks I saw last June.

One lap around the perimeter was sufficient today to take in a good amount of action.  I look forward to coming back in a month or so to see how things have progressed!