![]() But house sparrows often squat in the nests in winter, and the cliff swallows are obliged to rebuild and tidy up. Mud is a valuable resource in the arid West, and cliff swallows will reuse a complex of nests if they can. An entire colony will arrive on a single day, taking up residence in mud nests beneath a highway overpass – or on a cliff or canyon wall in the outback. The cliff swallows are an abrupt marker of seasonal change, Nickell said. Those are really cool – the swallows are back.” I'm always looking for the cliff swallows. ![]() “Sibley is close to our loop around the city,” Nickell said, “and it's got several bridges. Michael Nickell is museum scientist at the Sibley Center in Midland. On the West Texas interstates, keep your eye out for another March arrival. Violet-green swallows nest in tree holes and cliffs – and find the habitat they need in the Chisos, Davis and Guadalupe mountains. Tree swallows – the males have glossy blue-green feathers – are bound for the Rockies and other points north. The next round of travelers are incoming swallows, who've wintered in Mexico or Central America. There, these birds will summer, and raise their young. Now these birds head for the prairie potholes – an expanse of the northern Great Plains, from the Dakotas to Alberta, where thousands of shallow wetlands dot the landscape. Stock ponds and water holes – like Lake Balmorhea – have provided winter sanctuary here. The action begins in early March, Riley said, as ducks, geese, pelicans and other waterfowl and shorebirds depart. Riley watches the changing cast of characters from her Davis Mountains home, but similar patterns apply across West Texas, from Midland to Terlingua. “I love to look out in the backyard during March, because every day there is a little something different.” This is the time to watch the earth and sky, and glimpse the winged signs of spring's return.Ĭecilia Riley is an ornithologist, and a founder of the nonprofit Trans-Pecos Bird Conservation. ![]() Our year-round avian residents are stirring, turning toward courtship and nesting. That dynamism extends to the creature world. March, indeed, is a dynamic month in West Texas. There are upheavals in the weather here – swings in temperature, days of wind and dust. “Febrero loco y marzo otro poco” – “February is crazy and March a little more so” – a popular saying in Mexico and the borderlands has it. ![]()
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