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It reminds me of a sea bird. It has sleek wings and the whole bird is white exept for the tips of the wings which are black. I recently heard one of the birds make a screeching noise as he flew over.
Anything ring a bell? Oh BTW, I'm in the Amarillo area.
If no one can help you here, there is a website called "What Bird" and one of their forums is titled "Help Me Identify A Bird." People will help you from a description or a photo. There is also a way on their regular website that helps you identify a bird yourself.
What you may have seen was an Egret. There are several varieties in Texas. The one from France has black tipped wings. They were brought over to feed on bugs to keep the fields free of harmful insects. They will generally follow a tractor plowing or they will be found around cattle. Cattle will stir up insects as they walk and the egrets feed on these. If it looked close to this pic, that's probably what you saw. I would think they are common in your area. The French Egret stands probably 18" tall.
If no one can help you here, there is a website called "What Bird" and one of their forums is titled "Help Me Identify A Bird." People will help you from a description or a photo. There is also a way on their regular website that helps you identify a bird yourself.
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I wouldn't characterize the birds I saw as a great egret, though it may be a variety of egret. I'd really like to get a good camera and shoot them when I have some money.
There are several species of inland gulls and terns that could appear all white with black wingtips. Egrets to not have black wingtips. The California and Ring-billed gulls are pretty easy to recognize as gulls, but the Franklins and Bonapartes gulls do not make one think "seagull" when seen, they have a more fluttery flight behavior. Franklins would be a fairly common migrant in the Panhandle, but there could be winter stragglers.
By chance, I happened to run into a guy who new about the birds in this area. He said the bird in question was a kite. He said he also noticed the screeching noise kites make, and that if you could look at the top of the bird, it would be grey in color.
I looked up kites in Google images and noticed that none of them looked like the ones I see in Amarillo, so there must be a number of variations of kites.
I think he is describing the Black-shouldered (or White-tailed -- the name has been changed) Kite. It occurs as an uncommon winter bird in the Brush Country. (Uncommon means not common, but not rare, either.) An adult will look all white seen from underneath, but with graying toward the wingtips.
I think he is describing the Black-shouldered (or White-tailed -- the name has been changed) Kite. It occurs as an uncommon winter bird in the Brush Country. (Uncommon means not common, but not rare, either.) An adult will look all white seen from underneath, but with graying toward the wingtips.
I think in Amarillo, you get the Mississippi Kite, which like populated areas so they're often seen.
Here is another shot: I guess most pictures we see are shaded a bit on the under-side. Plus, this shot is hovering more or less, so the wing feathers are splayed.
Note: Released into the public domain (by the author).
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