Tricolored Heron

I spent about 3 and a half hours birding the neighborhood this morning, covering most of the new Lake Creek Trail. Today I started in the East at the new Parmer Village DR Horton development and walked upstream with the rising sun behind me. At around 8:00 AM I arrived at the last dam on the creek and saw 8-10 Snowy Egrets and a single Great Egret. But beyond them, upstream past the next small dam and barely visible were a Little Blue Heron and a juvenile Tricolored Heron! Tricolored Herons are coastal birds, but during the summer a few wander inland (usually juvenile birds in my experience). On the Texas coast this is a common heron but I've only seen it a few times in the Austin area and this was the first time I've found one in our neighborhood.

Soon after I realized what it was I started a wide path upstream to try and get closer to the heron without scaring it away. But someone was out fishing on the creek and decided to head upstream at the same time, flushing the birds before I got there. I was still pleased to have found the bird but was unsatisfied with the look I got. Luckily, on my way back at around 10:15 I found the bird again near the same spot. This time I was closer and I was able to get these pictures. Tricolored Herons have varied hunting techniques, and sometimes they are very active. This one sure was. It was making short dashes around in the water and flapping its wings as it grabbed small fish with its bill.


This might be the only bird whose juvenile plumage is more attractive to me than its adult plumage. You can see the rusty brown color in the neck and wings in this shot, which it loses as an adult.


It was a fun morning. The Tricolored Heron was #185 on my neighborhood bird list, and in total I found 49 species this morning (very high for a summer bird walk here). Cloud cover lasted most of the morning, keeping things relatively cool and comfortable.

Gathering Martins, Summer Residents

I birded the neighborhood for about 3 and a half hours this morning and except for it getting a little hot after 10:00 AM, it was pretty fun. Today was the first time I've seen significant numbers of Purple Martins. They're gathering into large groups and starting to head south. Last Sunday I counted 2 Purple Martins and this morning I counted 73. I saw most of them on top of the soccer field light posts at the T&C playing fields. I took this picture of 4 of them near the Meadowheath parking lot.

I had good luck finding some of the less common summer residents in the neighborhood today. I was happy to see an Eastern Phoebe, a White-eyed Vireo, and a male Painted Bunting. These are not rare birds, but during the summer they're hard to find in the NASWC area. The bird of the morning was a Cooper's Hawk, which is rare in the Austin area during the summer. This was my first July sighting of one in the neighborhood. I found all these birds along the creek, between the T&C soccer fields and the last dam.

For the first time since the construction started, I wandered around the new Parmer Village residential development near where Lake Creek goes under Parmer Lane. They have a drainage pond that had some neat shorebirds in it one morning back in May. And I might try to use this area as a meeting place for my bird walks. Today I discovered that all the new streets are open, and they all have bird names! But something's not quite right. Many of the birds don't occur in the neighborhood -- "Sage Grouse Dr.", "Oystercatcher Dr.", "White Ibis"... And then I saw "Blackvireo Dr." There's no such bird! I assume someone was thinking of the Black-capped Vireo, but maybe that name was too long? I'd love to know the story behind that.


I don't know anything about how new streets are planned or named, but I hope these street names mean that someone involved with the project had some notion of the rich bird life here. And one last note: I have seen a Black-capped Vireo in the neighborhood, only once, very near this new development.

The NASWC Top 20 Bird List & Challenge

I had an idea a couple months ago to make a list of the top 20 most common birds in the neighborhood as a tool to help neighbors start to learn our birds. And then I thought, hey, let's make it a challenge to try and find all 20! I think it would be a fun way to get into birding and I hope a few people agree. Here's the new NASWC article. And here are pictures of most of the top 20 birds (all taken in the neighborhood). If you live in the neighborhood and you've wanted to start learning the local birds, take the challenge!

NASWC Bird Walk

There were 3 of us for the July NASWC bird walk this morning and we had a surprisingly fun time. Through the first half of the walk the temperature stayed bearable and we had a nice breeze and a little bit of cloud cover. There was lots of bird activity and we found 41 species, including some south-bound migrating shorebirds on the creek. Can you believe that some birds are already heading south again? Here are the highlights:

• Many Western Kingbirds were along the creek actively defending their territories. (I got the above picture of one of them.) We even saw one chase a Belted Kingfisher upstream. Surprisingly, we did not see any Scissor-tailed Flycatchers.
• We also got good looks at a couple Great Crested Flycatchers, a summer resident that I have had trouble seeing this year.
• Newly fledged birds were out in force. We saw dozens of juvenile Northern Mockingbirds and American Robins on the T&C playing fields and along the creek. And on our way back we watched parent Barn Swallows feed younger birds in mid-air.
  
• On one small patch of the creek we saw 4 species of south-bound migrating shorebirds: 4 Least Sandpipers, 1 Semipalmated Sandpiper, 1 Spotted Sandpiper, and 2 Solitary Sandpipers.

We also found a plant and a butterfly we could not identify. Does anyone know what they are? Is the plant some kind of grape vine? Here they are:

Juvenile Broad-winged Hawks Sighted

I was very interested to get this photo from Lance Turner who lives on Broadmeade very near the Broad-winged Hawk nest I had been watching at Broadmeade and Norchester. He took the picture on July 5 and he has been enjoying watching at least 2 of these hawks hunting for insects and such in his backyard. This is a juvenile Broad-winged Hawk, and I think these are probably siblings from that nest. Thanks a bunch for the picture, Lance. I wish these birds good hunting!