SCOTS Doublewide & Live in Houston, Some Suburban Birding

That's my Michelle up on stage at the Continental Club in Houston, shakin' her groove thang with Southern Culture on the Skids. On the right, with the big hair, is bassist Mary Huff.

Troy and Elizabeth took us to the show last night. We had trouble finding the venue, but as it turned out we arrived a little too early (about 8pm), and walked in on the band performing a soundcheck. Killed some time and parted with some cash in a record store down the block. Then we went back and sat through an opening act called Clouseaux that at first perplexed and ultimately just irritated us (imagine instrumental surf music meets Henry Mancini, accompanied by non-verbal yelling, wailing, and scat singing).

SCOTS didn't actually start until about 11:30pm, so it would be a late night for us. A fight erupted at one point, and during the melee some a**hole splashed beer on Elizabeth before being ejected from the club. At least nobody got hurt and Troy's car didn't get keyed this time. Other than that it was a pleasant evening, and aside from a few miscreants, and a guy seated in front of us whose date stood him up, everyone seemed to have a good time. Here's another shot of Michelle on stage, this time with SCOTS frontman Rick Miller and the chick from the Land O'Lakes Butter label on the left.The show ended at about 1am, and Troy and Elizabeth let us crash at their home in Spring. They have feeders in their yard, and two male Rose-breasted Grosbeaks visited them today. When we got home this afternoon it was windy with ominous gray clouds, and since yucky weather often brings interesting birds I did some looking around the yard. At the pond I had a Northern Waterthrush (new for my yard list), and found Yellow, Tennessee, and Black-and-white Warblers flitting through a neighbor's live oak. Then a Baltimore Oriole made a brief appearance. Clearly there was a small fallout occurring!

Considering how good the birding was in suburbia I'm guessing that it was probably even better on the coast today. Before going back inside I also saw a couple of Cattle Egrets fly by - a common roadside bird that I rarely see from our yard.