NASWC Bird Walk

This morning 7 of us participated in the June NASWC Bird Walk. We spent a couple hours on Lake Creek Trail, starting at the Parmer Village development and making it to the first baseball field at Town and Country. It was an unexpectedly pleasant morning with some cloud cover and a nice breeze most of the time. We found 35 species of birds, and had a few interesting non-bird species as well. Here are the highlights.

• This juvenile Little Blue Heron was in the Parmer Village drainage pond where we met, and we later found it again and photographed it in the woods by the creek. Little Blue Heron is a common summer resident in the Austin area, but it's not a bird I see in the neighborhood very often after spring migration.
  
  
  
• My favorite sight of the morning was a Western Kingbird we watched by the creek as it repeatedly flew down and dunked itself in the water in mid-flight. Then it returned to its perch to preen. I've never seen one bathe like that!
• A few in the group who know butterflies were excited to find a rare Arizona Sister by the creek.
• In the south baseball field at Town and Country, we found a pair of Bronzed Cowbirds. I got this picture of the male with its feathers puffed out to attract the female. Look at those red eyes!
  
  
  
• Twice in patches of woods by the creek, we heard Green Treefrogs, a species I've never observed in the neighborhood before.
• Back at the Parmer Village model homes parking lot we found 4 baby Killdeer with about 6 adults. I got this picture of 2 of them.