Location: Webberville – Big Webberville Park, Travis County, US-TX
Observation date: January 5, 2013
Number of species: 58 (+ 1 other taxa)
EPISODE 80: Small Mammal Day
I love it when the leaves are off the trees. It makes it so much easier to see other things. Today we found a couple of Raccoons and squirrels were everywhere. In the ‘not-so-small-mammal’ department we found lots of places where the wild hogs have been tearing up the ground. Cook’s Island has been hit very hard.
It was a great morning for birding too. After two days of cold rain the birds must have been very hungry. I think they were looking forward to a break in weather to get out and feed. Some of our best birds of the day included Bald Eagle, Wilson Warbler and a huge flock of Brewer’s Blackbirds. We had Yellow-rumped Warblers the entire way down the river. American Goldfinch’s were everywhere. We caught a glimpse of the previously mentioned Bald Eagle. We ended the day with five species of woodpecker including the Pileated. Native sparrows, Eastern Bluebirds, and Eastern Phoebes were plentiful and rounded out our list of 59 species.
We even found one species of herptile – an unidentified turtle.
Thanks to Lea and Duncan Charlton, Sharon and Jeff Richardson, and John Barr for getting out on a chilly but beautiful morning to help with the survey.
Don’t forget about Austin Bastrop and the Austin Bastrop River Corridor Partnership page on Facebook. There are a lot more photos and other items of interest to the river on the page.
(Click any image below to view larger. Photos by Claude Morris.)
Number of species: 58 (+ 1 other taxa)
Wood Duck 6
Gadwall 12
Mallard 2
Northern Shoveler 8
Ring-necked Duck 3
Pied-billed Grebe 23
Double-crested Cormorant 3
Great Blue Heron 7
Great Egret 9
Black Vulture 12
Turkey Vulture 15
Osprey 3
Cooper’s Hawk 1
Bald Eagle 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 9
Red-tailed Hawk 5
American Coot 4
Killdeer 33
Spotted Sandpiper 18
Greater Yellowlegs 16
Least Sandpiper 45
Wilson’s Snipe 9
White-winged Dove 17
Mourning Dove 8
Belted Kingfisher 9
Green Kingfisher 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 12
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 3
Downy Woodpecker 42
Northern Flicker 1
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Crested Caracara 3
Eastern Phoebe 25
Blue Jay 8
American Crow 6
Carolina Chickadee 32
Black-crested Titmouse 15
Carolina Wren 22
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 7
Eastern Bluebird 14
Northern Mockingbird 1
American Pipit 8
Orange-crowned Warbler 5
Common Yellowthroat 4
Yellow-rumped Warbler 150
Wilson’s Warbler 1
Chipping Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 8
Lincoln’s Sparrow 12
Swamp Sparrow 1
White-crowned Sparrow 4
Northern Cardinal 44
Red-winged Blackbird 80
Eastern/Western Meadowlark 25
Brewer’s Blackbird 500
Great-tailed Grackle 30
House Finch 1
Lesser Goldfinch 6
American Goldfinch 100
