Birdwatching Colorado River Report
This is part of a report from the Austin Bastrop River Corridor. This area of the Colorado River is about 30 minutes West of Smithville.
September Travis County River Monitoring Trip Results – Sept 5 –
Location: Austin Colony – Webberville
Observation date: 9/5/09
It rained on us; first thing when we were doing the shuttle. The river was a dirty brown muddy color and running fairly quick. We think there was lots of runoff from last nights rain over downtown that filled up Waller Creek and Shoal Creek. After the rain we were treated with overcast skies for the rest of the ride down to Webberville. For the first time in a long time I did not use any suntan lotion. Oh birds, you want to hear about the birds.
We have three very good sightings for the day. While still preparing our boats at the put-in a Tricolored Heron flew upstream. Later in the morning we got an Anhinga. Finally there was that Olive-sided Flycatcher, we will put that one in the good sightings list also. We also got a Yellow Warbler and several Empidonax Flycatchers. Owls are always fun and we got two Great Horned Owls.
In the migrant column we got Baltimore Orioles, Yellow Warbler and Empidonax Flycatchers.
In the ‘we-should-of’ category we missed most ducks and we had no migrating hawks.
In all we got 49 species.
Number of species: 49
Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 1
Anhinga 1
Great Blue Heron 12
Great Egret 5
Snowy Egret 6
Little Blue Heron 2
Tricolored Heron 1
Green Heron 24
Black Vulture 32
Turkey Vulture 28
Osprey 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 4
Crested Caracara 4
Killdeer 3
Spotted Sandpiper 28
White-winged Dove 48
Mourning Dove 8
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 3
Great Horned Owl 2
Chimney Swift 7
hummingbird sp. 2
Belted Kingfisher 5
Red-bellied Woodpecker 14
Downy Woodpecker 3
Olive-sided Flycatcher 1
Empidonax sp. 3
Great Crested Flycatcher 3
Western Kingbird 11
Eastern Kingbird 8
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 3
White-eyed Vireo 26
Blue Jay 6
American Crow 14
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 6
Cliff Swallow 12
Barn Swallow 100
Carolina Chickadee 26
Black-crested Titmouse 16
Carolina Wren 22
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 18
Eastern Bluebird 9
Northern Mockingbird 5
Yellow Warbler 1
Northern Cardinal 78
Red-winged Blackbird 25
Common Grackle 26
Great-tailed Grackle 12
Baltimore Oriole 18
House Finch 2