Group Walk Report January 17, 2015

Three folks joined me for the first group walk of 2015. It was a beautiful morning and we found 23 species of birds. Here are some highlights.

In the dense oak-juniper woods just east of the gate we found White-winged Dove feathers scattered over about 20 square feet. This was probably a kill site where an avian predator caught the White-winged Dove and/or partially ate it from a perch. In the winter, small birds have to watch out for several birds of prey that specialize in hunting other birds, including Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks, and three kinds of falcons. Since White-winged doves are pretty large and we found the feathers in dense woods, my best guess was that a Cooper's Hawk was the predator in this case.

Near the spring we watched 30-40 Ring-billed Gulls fly over us heading west. We saw another group later and I estimated the total we saw to be about 70. Ring-billed Gulls spend the winter in Texas, and I think many have a daily commute from the roosting site at one of the land fills in east Austin to Lake Travis in the mornings and then back to the land fill in the late afternoon.

Near one of the houses we heard and then got far looks at a Canyon Wren. These are year-round residents that are only found in canyon habitats. They are much easier heard than seen, so we were fortunate to get a look at one and to get this distant photo:

Uphill on the western part of the preserve we encountered a sparse mixed species foraging flock of small birds in the cedar elms. This group included two Golden-crowned Kinglets, an uncommon winter species in central Texas. These were the first I've seen this season, and here's a photo I got of one:

On our way back we found a group of Chipping Sparrows and as we watch them we noticed that gentle gusts of wind were blowing visible clouds of pollen off of the nearby cedar trees! I I was able to capture this in a photo:

By the time we made it back to the gate my throat was starting to itch!

Here's our complete bird list.

And here are the iNaturalist observations I made during the walk.

Posted on January 19, 2015 12:49 AM by mikaelb