Hornsby Bend Celebration Weekend

So I left early for the Austin area on Thursday.  I had contacted Susan at Watbler Woods and got permission to visit her property.   Warbler Woods is a 100 plus acre property just outside of Austin that is set up to be birded with a number of paths specifically for birding.  The owners of this private property are amazing.  Their hospitality is exemplary.  I got there at about 3 pm and wwent out to bird for a few hours before I went to Hornsby Bends Owl Workshop that was part of their 50th Anniversary Celebration.

The first thing I saw were the 4 dogs that welcomed me to the property.  They are the alarms that alert the owners of visitors.  The lab pup decided that she was going to show me around and stuck with me like glue.  I started out in their backyard and saw House Sparrows and House Finches.  I saw an Eastern Phoebe, some House Wrens and a bird with a touch of blue in the tail that I had a block in IDing.  I had been talking to some friends about the different Bluebirds and got stuck on them that I was blinded to the Indigo Bunting of all birds (female/ juvie male).

I left for the Owl workshop and drove for about an hour to get there.  We learned about the different species of owls in Texas.   Some of the things discussed were which birds hunted by sight and which hunted by hearing.  It turns out that I have started losing my hearing a little since I could not hear the sound he played at 10khz  :(  After the class we went out to call owls to see if we could see or hear one of the three species of the property: the Great Horned, Barred, and Barn Owls.  He played the Barn owl in the fields out front.  No response.  No response to the Great Horned either.  We went out to Platt lane and he started calling a Barred Owl with his voice and he was great!  Dr. Rob Fergus of Bird Chaser fame taught the class both nights and was master of Ceremonies Saturday night for the 50 year history lesson of Hornsby Bend.  His call was perfect and loud, and within 5 minutes he had a Barred Owl calling back and actually flew in to check us out for about 30 seconds! 

 I decided that I would get a hotel down next to Warbler Woods instead of driving an hour in the other direction to two hours away from Warbler Woods.  I stayed up to work online and on my pictures and ended up staying up till about 2.  It started raining at about 5 and I got a call at 7 from work.  It was still pouring rain so I decided to sleep in.  I got to Warbler Woods at 1 pm and found some seriously muddy trails!  The trail next to the house had a flock of Warblers including a Wilson's Warbler,  Blue-grey Gnatcatchers, and Carolina Chickadees.  Walking to the back of the property I came across both Carolina and House Wrens.  As I rounded the corner, I saw this raptor with a white rump (a Northern Harrier) that headed towards the Sparrow Hole.  When I got there I flushed him along with about 5 White Winged Doves.There were warblers flitting around in the bushes but not in view,  I did have a couple of male American Redstarts fly over the top.  Susan came by and put some seed out at the station and the Cardinals and Indigo Buntings came out and a cople of Common Ground Doves were just in the back, getting some of the leftover seed.

I went to the Owl workshop and had a really difficult time deciding whether I should take off in time to see my daughter and granddaughter or go to the field trip after the class.  I decided, correctly to visit Maddie and she was so excited to see me for a few minutes and then ran off to play with Daddy.  Ah, well, I was going to have to get up at 5 anyways so that was OK.

I got up at 5 to get to get to Hornsby by 6.  Everything went as planned except for the weather.  The forecast was for 75 and sunny and instead it was 60 and cloudy with a brisk wind. There were almost 50 people there to cover the whole property compared to the normal 8-10 birders. The birding was slow for us but the numbers added up for all of the groups so that we had 126 species for the day which is more than we get for the CBCs during a birdier time of year. A highlite of the day was seeing the kettles of Swainson's Hawks adding up to over 2000 birds. 

I stayed for part of the celebrations with stories and pictures of the past 50 years of Hornsby Bend.  I bought too many books and bid on a couple that I got at the silent auction.  I won/bought a signed Sibley's Eastern US and a signed Hawks in Flight by Sibley and Dunne.  I bid on a Great Horned Owl picture that Eric Carpenter decided he wanted and almost doubled my bid. I was going to buy the beautiful shot of a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, but another Eric wanted it so I backed off.

8:36 PM - October 11, 2009 - post comment

Warbler Woods

You had the better day at Warbler Woods - I went out on Saturday morning and it was too cool, too windy and too muddy. Very quiet birdwise; I'm thinking whatever birds you saw Friday pushed on through. It's always fun to go and the Schaezler's are so nice. Gigi is the name of the birdwatching Lab - she's a better birding companion than some people I've been out with!

TinaG
San Antonio
http://comethatmidnight.wordpress.com

Anonymous - 11:00 PM - October 12, 2009