Friday and Sunday

Friday morning I showed a visitor from France our neighborhood hike-and-bike trail. Awhile back Chris Shaw, a British expat living in France, found my blog and asked if we could go birding while he was in Austin to visit his in-laws in Brushy Creek. We ended up spending 4 hours birding and taking pictures on Lake Creek Trail with his brother-in-law Pete, and we had a great time. The highlights were good looks at Vesper Sparrows, American Pipits, Least Sandpipers, and a female Belted Kingfisher by the footbridge. Above is a photo I got of the kingfisher.

As I previously posted about, Moria Darnell was birding the trail on Friday morning as well and found 2 Black-crowned Night-Herons by the Parmer Lane bridge. This morning I was able to re-find these 2 birds myself and got this mediocre photo of one. (This makes 197 species on my neighborhood list.) The fact that these birds were still in the same area suggests that they might not be just passing through on their way south. So I am very curious to see how long these herons hang around. According to most range maps Austin is just north of their year-round resident range.

On both Friday and Sunday I saw lots of sparrows. Native sparrow species are mostly in our neighborhood only in the winter, and it was so nice to see that most have now returned in substantial numbers. On Friday and Sunday I observed my first Spotted Towhee and Swamp Sparrows of the fall, as well as Vesper Sparrows, Savannah Sparrows, White-throated Sparrows, Lincoln's Sparrows, and singing Song Sparrows. Here's one of the Vesper Sparrows. Notice the strong white eye-ring.