Texas Hill Country Birding Part 1

Year 5,

Molly and I are 376 miles into our bike tour. The Hill Country was both gorgeous, and hilly! What did I expect?! We are now taking a big detour around San Antonio in preparation for biking to the national forests in East Texas.

In Kerrville, Texas, I had the opportunity to do some birding one afternoon along the Guadalupe River and the next day in Bandera … Cowboy Capital of Texas. Here are some of the birds I found. When I next have a decent web connection, I will upload some more bird and wildflowers photos. The color along the roadsides has been stupendous.

Yellow-Crowned Night Herons
Egyptian Goose

Unknown Kind of Goose and Wildflowers

Teaser … Wildflowers! (full post coming)Local Cyclists Were Curious About Our Tour!

Two Timing Texas Tour Starts!

Year 5,

We’ve started. Yesterday was a shake down ride and today was actual touring. Between the two rides we have 60 miles under our belt … 45 today. While we had planned to head to East Texas first, the blooming wildflowers demanded a route change … before we had even started. Thus, we are off to the Hill Country. We biked back roads from Paluxy over to De Leon, starting tomorrow we work our way down Texas 16 to the Hill Country.

My daily bike diary is on the Crazy Guy on a Bike Portal, but on my own blog I will focus with occasional posts about the experience. Thus, our last two days on my Bill and Philllis’s farm were fantastic. I would bird at sunrise by walking the farm followed by a training ride and R&R. Here some of the results.

The Farm!

Cedar Waxwings at Dawn

Turkey Vulture

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird

Red-Bellied Woodpecker Love.

Snow Storm Birding

Year 5

My final training ride for our Texas bike tour was snowed out over night. Depending upon one’s location in Minnesota, new snow totaled between 3 and 11 inches of snow. Combine the white stuff with a 25 mph wind, temperatures falling through the 20’s into the teens, and biking was a bust. Thus, I went birding!

If one finds the open water, one finds the birds. I birded a small steam with accompanying wetlands. It was a bird bonanza. Basset Creek as it flows out of Northwood Park in New Hope, Minnesota was full of birds. This morning I saw lots of juncos, redpolls, grackles, blackbirds, mallards, geese, hooded mergansers, wood ducks, great blue herons, and even a woodcock!

All these birds also attracted the attention of this juvenile red-tailed hawk which had vision of duck for breakfast. I was surprised that even when the hawk swooped down towards the stream, then ducks ignored the raptor.

Juvenile Red Tailed Hawk Hunting Ducks

Mr. and Mrs. Hooded Merganser

Goose Fight

Skies eventually cleared … Red Bellied Woodpecker