Birds of southeast Texas in photos

We were out doing our usual weekend bike trip around town and heard this huge ruckus from a bunch of birds. So I ditched the bike and followed a path back to the noise and discovered about 30 to 40 herons and egrets all nesting in a cluster of three pine trees. These clusters are called rookeries I later learned. There are 30 or 40 adults and twenty or so nests all piled up right on top of each other in the pines. There are many babies in the nests, all wings and necks and squabbling with each other. They hang upside down from their long necks and scope out the world from under and around the nests.

It is especially interesting because when ever I run across one of these birds it’s just that, one of them. You rarely see more than one on any pond and never more than two.

Photos taken at rookery on Wedgewood Lake, The Woodlands, TX