Lark Bunting and Green-tailed Towhee

Just a quick post. I was on Lake Creek Trail last Sunday morning, starting at the Parmer Village pond. I was excited to find two new species for my neighborhood bird species list. This Lark Bunting was briefly perched with several Savannah Sparrows in one of the small trees by the pond.

An hour and a half later I was near the large baseball diamond on the Town and Country playing fields when I found this Green-tailed Towhee foraging with several Lincoln's Sparrows.

Both of these are midwestern species that breed mostly north of Texas. Last summer conditions were wet in much of the midwest. Life was good for the breeding birds there and more new birds than usual were produced. Then these birds migrated south into our drought. They had to search farther to find food and water, which is why we've seen many of them in central Texas this winter, east of their usual range. These two species bring my neighborhood bird list up to 212 species!

Here's my complete bird list from Sunday morning.