.
Most of my blog posts are about birds. However, I occasionally like to focus on other aspects of the natural world, particularly when I haven't had much success in finding birds, as was the case on our weekend trip to Bastrop.
On our drive up to the hill country, we saw very few wildflowers by the roadside: It was a little late in the season, plus we have been in a drought for months. So when we came to explore Bastrop and Buescher State Parks and the Lost Pines Nature Trail, I was surprised by the variety of wildflowers that we ran across. Here is a selection.
Given the number of flowers, it wasn't surprising that we also saw quite a few butterflies, including many Pipevine Swallowtails enjoying the yellow prickly pear blossoms.
Not all of the butterflies were busy looking for food. These swallowtails were getting on with the equally important business of mating.
.
.
One of my main reasons for wanting to spend some time in Bastrop was to check out the birds in Bastrop and Buescher State Parks and the surrounding area. However, perhaps because of the very windy conditions, I ended up seeing comparatively few birds - my trip total was only 35 species.
Most of the species I saw were very common ones, such as Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, (scores of) Northern Cardinals, and Great-tailed Grackles.
Although the area around Alum Creek was very busy with a range of birds, the only migrant that I managed actually to see was a Black-and-White Warbler.
A Wild Turkey by the roadside at Bastrop was a treat but didn't stay for a photo, and a Greater Roadrunner was almost as quick to disappear.
Both state parks had Western Kingbirds ...
... while the Lost Pines Nature Trail along the Colorado River produced a Couch's Kingbird.
The same trail had several Pileated Woodpeckers both times that I walked it.
The trip wasn't a great success as far as birding goes. However, the scenery was wonderful and I enjoyed taking photos of some of the many wildflowers and butterflies. I'll post a selection of these on Thursday.
.
.
As the weather and the scenery at Bastrop were really beautiful that we decided to stay an extra night and so we didn't get home until yesterday. Until I can sort out my photos from the trip, here are some pictures I took of Cliff Swallows building nest under a highway flyover near Bastrop State Park.
If you look carefully at this photo, you can see that the bird's face is partially obscured by its cargo of mud.
In a normal year, the swallows probably don't have to fly far to collect mud. However, given how dry the area is this year, they must be traveling quite some distance to find their next-building material. Since the nests appear to use two different colors of mud, the swallows presumably travel to different sites to collect it.
.
