College Street Egret Rookery

Where do cattle egrets go to build their nests?  In Lewisville, that is apparently the neighborhood pool park on College Street, now known as Wayne Frady Park. 

We had heard about this rookery on the news and in the paper, but did not know what to expect.  On our way home from LLELA earlier this week we decided to swing by and take a look.  We are glad we did.  

Dozens or perhaps hundreds of birds, mostly cattle egrets, have crowded into the trees near the back of this small park and built nests on what seems to be every possible space.  
 

Each of the "clumps" in the tree is a nest

The rookery is a real nuisance to the people in this neighborhood, but it was very interesting to see.  It is also very accessible, with the viewing spots a short walk down a sidewalk from the parking lot.

There were birds scattered throughout the trees, most squabbling over space.

  Of course there were birds on each of the nests.

Cattle egrets sitting on their nests

 
In addition to the birds in the trees, there was a steady stream of birds flying into and out of the area carrying sticks...presumably making more nests. 
 
The area under the trees was blocked off, but it was easy to see at several breaks in the overgrown bushes that there were dozens more birds on the ground.

Birds in the open space under the trees

Cattle egrets are not small birds.  They are 18-22 inches long and have a wingspan of 3 feet or more. 

Cattle egret with non-breeding yellow beak and legs

 

Cattle egret with the pink legs and pink on the beak of breeding season

We will likely visit again.  We are sure the birds will be there for awhile.  By federal law (the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918) once nests are established nothing can be done to disturb the birds.  The birds will leave on their own at the end of nesting season, but that may not be until November.

Using iNaturalist

I wrote extensively in April about the City Nature Challenge (Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), a competition among the citizens of selected cities to post nature observations.  The competition used the site iNaturalist.org, a place for citizen scientists to post observations of animals and plants.

I did not think we would use iNaturalist much after that, but I was wrong.  Since then we have begun to use iNaturalist routinely.  We are finding it useful for a number of reasons.

How is it useful?

Recording our nature observations.  iNaturalist is a means of recording what we see during our walks, particularly at LLELA.  For example, here are the most recent 30 observations we have recorded.  It should be possible to click on any one of the pictures to see the details of that observation. (BTW, all of these are the Frog's pics.)

Alternatively, click on the link below to see all of our observations.  

View alchemist2000's observations »

Better yet, what I like to do is to go to the iNaturalist calendar for our finds and click on the date to see what observations we recorded on that day.  Each of the pictures is a link to our full observation.  That includes not only a picture or pictures, but a map of where we made the observation and points on the map for other people's observations of the same thing.  It takes "scrapbooking" of our nature adventures to a whole new level!!  

Seeing what other people are doing.  What has been surprising to me are some of the other uses of iNaturalist beyond just recording our finds.  Since other people also use it, it gives us a way to see what other people are observing and where.

I routinely look to see what others have reported at LLELA.  Seeing their observations has made me aware of many many things I did not know even existed. 

For example, we were well aware of great blue herons.  We see them all the time at LLELA and at Lake Park.

Great Blue Heron

However, based on other people's reports we became aware of several other types of herons.  For anyone that has routinely been around water and marshes these may seem common place, but we had no idea these other birds existed.  Seeing other people's posts introduced us to the different species and gave us an incentive to look harder to see if we too could find them.  It has been a great adventure. 

Green Heron--yea, it is not really very green, but that is its name.

Yellow-Crowned Night Heron -- He must be asleep; he is standing on one leg.

Little Blue Heron

Learning more about what we are seeing.  Finally, and probably most importantly, for newbie naturalists like us, iNaturalist is an aid to identifying what we see.  Once we post our identification, whether only generally (bird) or a specific specie (yellow-crowned night heron), we get feedback on the accuracy of our identification.  That is especially important when I mess up and get the ID wrong.  It is really helping us learn. 

Dragonflies.  For birds or for many butterflies identification is not too bad.  It just takes time.  However, for dragonflies and damselflies, the input from experts has been essential.  A few of the types of dragonflies are readily identifiable.  Among the easiest for us are the Eastern Pondhawk and the Common Whitetail, both of which we see in great abundance.  Even with these they were tricky at first because the genders look so different. 

male Eastern Pondhawk

 

female Eastern Pondhawk

male Common Whitetail dragonfly

female Common Whitetail dragonfly

 

juvenile male Common Whitetail dragonfly (the wings of the male but the abdomen of the female)

Some of the others I find confusing.  Even though the male and female within a species look totally different, one may look nearly identical to another totally different species.  For example, male and female Blue Dashers are totally different, but I still sometimes confuse the male Blue Dasher with the male Eastern Pondhawk. 

male Blue Dasher dragonfly

I always have trouble differentiating the female Blue Dasher and the female Great Blue Skimmer.  For them it seems to come down to leg color and color on the sides of their thorax (chest).  That assumes, of course, that the pictures are good enough to make such differentiation.  Sometimes the critters don't cooperate with the perfect pose to make these distinctions.

 

female Blue Dasher dragonfly

female Great Blue Skimmer dragonfly

 
Damselflies.  That does not even address the damselflies, which I find another order of magnitude more difficult to identify in many cases since there are so many species that are very similar looking.  Despite that, they are so neat and so little...often only an inch or so in length...they are still worth the effort.

Fragile Forktail damselfly

Blue-ringed Dancer damselfly -- You can see how tiny he is (about 1.25" total length) next to the screw in the decking of the bridge

Blue-fronted Dancer damselfly

The Amazon elves have brought me a whole series of new guide books which are incredibly helpful.  However, having input through iNaturalist from lots of experts has really helped.  Most have been very patient with me since I think they know I am trying....and, of course, they can see the Frog usually supplies really good images.

Hopefully you can tell I am having loads of fun with this.