.So why were there so many birders at the Hornsby Bend sewage plant on Sunday? Well, it turned out that they were there to see a very special bird: a Red Phalarope. This is a species which is at home on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans but rarely visits the US mainland. So to have one arrive in Austin, miles from either ocean and well inland was certainly an unusual event.The bird was first spotted on Saturday, when it cruised near the edge of the pond and let birders photograph it from just feet away. Unfortunately, on Sunday it stayed near the middle of the pond and was clearly visible only through spotting scopes.
This is the closest view I got of it!
After waiting vainly for a while to see if the Phalarope would come nearer, I gave up and drove around the other ponds. Most of the ducks, including a pair of Wood Ducks, also stayed well out of reach but some Pied-billed Grebes came fairly close ...
while American Coots were less standoffish than earlier in the morning.
A Spotted Sandpiper, too, was more cooperative.
The edges of the ponds were vey busy with Hackberry Emperor (?) butterflies. The hardest part of photographing these was that they tended to land on and crawl around the top of my camera.
Mid-morning I left Hornsby Bend so that Dee and I could check out of the motel, get lunch and visit one more site before driving home.The site we chose was McKinney Falls State Park, only a few miles outside Austin itself.
On an earlier visit, two summers ago, we saw plenty of birds there. This time, our total in an hour was 3 birds. (That's three total individuals, not species!)
An Eastern Phoebe greeted us.
After that, all we saw was a pair of Red-tailed Hawks.
Of course, the fact that the hawks kept circling overhead was probably why we didn't see any other songbirds.
However, it was still worth the hour we spent there. It's a beautiful park, there were lots of butterflies, and there were also some interesting plants.
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.At dawn on Sunday I was driving around Austin's sewage plant - or, as they call it here, "the Hornsby Bend water treatment facility."
The first of the large ponds had several Pied-billed Grebes. The light was still very poor but I managed to get one viewable photo.
The Grebes were sharing the pond with rafts of American Coots.
The Coots were unconcerned as long as I stayed in the car but, as soon as I got out, they would panic and take to flight.
A walk down to the river produced nothing except Northern Cardinals and Carolina Chickadees but the ponds started to show more signs of life as the sun rose.
While White-faced Ibis wheeled overhead, Cattle Egrets began to waken up on the tree where they had been roosting.
As the light improved, Eastern Phoebes and Scissor-tailed Flycatchers started hunting for their breakfasts.
Blue-winged Teal and Northern Shovelers were cruising the pond ...
sieving the water for their food.
Several Ruddy Ducks were the first I had seen in Texas this year.
The second pond more American Coots, as well as a few American Avocets, four Great Egrets, a Marsh Wren and my first fall Lincoln's and Savannah Sparrows. However, the air here was too thick with fumes for me to linger very long.
By now, I'd noticed that several other cars of birders had arrived. I wondered if perhaps a local birding club had organized a trip to the site. As I soon learned, the truth was much more exciting. But I'll wait until tomorrow to post about what was really going on.
We couldn't have chosen a better weekend for our visit to Austin. The weather was absolutely perfect - sun blue skies and 75 degrees.
We broke the 2.5 hour drive with a picnic lunch at Bastrop State Park. The air was beautifully clear and it was great to be in hilly country country again.
Although we only stayed an hour, and it was early afternoon, there were plenty of birds around. Turkey and Black Vultures flew over, while the trees were busy with Red-bellied and Downy Woodpeckers, Carolina Chickadees, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and Pine Warblers. Unfortunately, none of them would oblige me by posing for photos.
We checked into our motel in Austin and then went over to the Zilker Botanical Gardens. Unlike the botanical gardens in Phoenix and Salt Lake City, Zilker is not wonderful for birds. In fact, the only birds we saw there were Great-tailed Grackles.
However, they are great for butterflies ...
and other bugs.
And if you're not into bugs, you can always admire the plants.
That night I turned in early, to be ready for an early morning drive to the Hornsby Bend sewage plant on Sunday. Dee had decided that she didn't want to get up before dawn on Sunday. As you'll see tomorrow, this was a mistake.
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