"Stocky short-tailed bird with rather large head and relatively long spikelike bill. Wings fairly long and pointed ... Winter: Glossy black overall, with fine white or buffy tips to body feathers and buffy margins to all flight feathers. The dots and margins wear off gradually over winter to produce the summer plumage. Bill black (Aug-Dec); starts turning yellow in Dec." (Donald & Lillian Stokes's The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, p. 579)

"Common to abundant resident throughout most of the state, but rare to uncommon in rural areas of the western half of the state. A release of 60 individuals in New York City in 1880 is purportedly how this Old World species was introduced into the United States." (Mark W. Lockwood & Brush Freeman's The TOS Handbook of Texas Birds, p. 164)

That these individuals are the first in ten years (2005 - 2015) supports the "rare to uncommon" judgment. Now,
they seem to be settling in.