Birds flock to the Katy Prairie
The Katy Prairie in west Harris County is a great place to bask in the pastoral fields and watch birds in the sweeping grasslands.
On a beautiful day in May, I visited the Katy Prairie Conservancy’s Wildlife Viewing Platform on Warren Ranch Road near Hockley. I stood atop the two-story platform overlooking the 140-acre Warren Lake surrounded by fields of grasses like bluestem and dappled with flowers like bright yellow Texas coneflowers catching the sunlight like nuggets of gold.
I watched wading birds like black-necked stilts, great egrets and a little blue heron prowling the shallow waters along the lake shore for fish, frogs and crustaceans.
Barn swallows and cliff swallows flew in fast zigzagging flights over the grasslands to scoop up flying insects as tall grasses beneath them swayed easily against a cool southeasterly breeze.
Then I heard a highpitched birdsong with sharp quick notes sounding like the words “dickdick-dick, dic-zizzel” that gave the bird its onomatopoetic name dickcissel. Several of the handsome sparrow-size birds perched on the tower showing their colorful grayish-brown heads and backs contrasting with bright yellow breasts
sporting black bibs.
Dickcissels migrate to Texas prairies in the spring from winter homes in central Venezuela.
Two crested caracaras perched on power poles by the road behind me. Folk named “Mexican eagles,” with white heads, wingtips and tails, caracaras are nonetheless in the falcon family and feed on small mammals like rabbits and even on carrion.
Caracaras used to be a rare sight on the Katy Prairie but have expanded their range from South Texas northward into Harris County and other places.
Eastern meadowlarks used to perch on grass stems all over the Katy Prairie while singing their flutelike song. I saw only a few this time. Meadowlarks don’t fare well against bustling suburbia breaking up prairies.
I ended my morning at the Prairie Conservancy’s Indian Grass Preserve and field office on Hebert Road in Waller County. Trails through the preserve wind around shallow ponds and through native grasses and flowers offering living quarters to such diverse birds as loggerhead shrikes and egrets.
Strolling along a trail, I was accosted by a male red-winged blackbird flying at me with its redepaulets flaring like warning flags and then fluttering frenetically above my head while uttering a high-pitched pinging call as if to say, “Get out of here.”
The bird was right. We have tread carelessly into prairies, and we must leave some of them alone for the sake of birds, wildlife, and even for our own sakes.