Josey Ranch Birds – July 2023
/It was over 80 degrees in Carrollton, TX in July first thing in the morning (every day I was there it climbed quickly to over 100 degrees!), so I made my visit to Josey Ranch just after sunrise. It’s also a time of day when there is a lot of bird activity. I checked the larger pond first. There were lots of raucous grackles…I managed to see a juvenile just as it hopped from the boardwalk to the grass.
Out in the shallow water was a Snowy Egret and
A Great Blue Heron in deeper water.
The Little Blue Heron was the high point of the morning. There was an adult in the water. I saw it catch a fish and then a crayfish in the short time that I was watching!
The Little Blue Heron and Snowy Egret crossed paths – making for a great image to compare their relative size.
In the shallows near the cattails there was a juvenile little blue heron. It always is a bit of a surprise to see this white bird…think it is a snowy egret at first and then realize that it is not (beak wrong color and shape, legs wrong color). There appear to be some blue feathers near the tail and around the eye already.
In the smaller pond, there were more Snowy Egrets
And a Great Egret.
I was trying to see if there were growing up ducklings. They grow so fast that they are already almost adult size; judging from the sheer numbers of ducks, some of them must be the two sets of ducklings I saw in June.
Overall – a good birding morning!
