The park is actually called Southwest Williamson Country Regional Park. My friend drives the miniture train there and he texted me saying tht there was a bird on the train tracks eacy time he goes past. I went and found that it was a Killdeer. They do an act of being wounded to attract preditors away from the nest. So, there is a nest near by. I scanned and scanned but never saw the nest nor the mate. I did capture a nice image of him and a video of his behaviour.
I hope you enjoy them.
I guess birders like to have "lists" and the list I'm focused on right now are is the list of birds I've reported in 2026 in Williamson country. I've come across Purple Martins before and in 2026 but not in Williamson country so that was one of my objectives recently and I hit pay dirt today. A flock of about ten if not more were flying around. They are surprisingly big. They seem much bigger than a swallow or a swift. When I first saw them, I didn't know what they were.
They flew around. Some landed in a tree briefly, them headed over to hunt over the lake. And fairly quickly, they were gone. I got a few pictures.
Then I saw another large bird... No!!! That is not a vulture. Turns out it was a Red-tailed Hawk. Weee!!!
And finally as I was on the last leg of the jouney, I wondered where all the Scissor-tailed Flycatchers were. Seriously... I did! And so one came up and said "Hi!!! I'm right here.!"
Please enjoy the images.
Yesterday, I first went to Chandler Park in Georgetown hoping to see some Mississippi Kites but no luck. I did see a female Summer Tananger but the photos were nothing to write home about. The park is on the north fork of the San Gabriel River. Here are some videos of its flow and a still photo showing that the river had been much higher.
Then I went to Lakewood Park. It has a flood retention pond. In the past several months, they have kept it low. There is a big controvery over it. But when I went yesterday, it was back to what I would call "normal". But there was obviously a lot of debris. The water must have been five to ten feet higher than normal.
I also got a good photo of a Scissor-tail Flycatcher and a Eastern Phoebe.
But first, a little touch of beauty
I had a new visitor. A Red-bellied Woodpecker. You will see two different ones in the sequence below. One I guess is a juvinelle. Then there are a few different Ladder-backed Woodpeckers. And we also have a small skirmish between them and the ever present Blue Jays.
Lake Georgetown is about ten feet above full. It is on the north fork of the San Gabriel River. I went yesterday after checking out the flow of the south fork but my camera battery died so I went back today. I finally got a picture of the Red-eyed Verio. It pops up frequently on the "Merlin ID" app -- which I've come to not like in a lot of ways but that's another story. There is a few acre size open area just below the dam and there were "barn swallows" catching bugs. Or so I thought. I just lazily took a few snap shots of them sitting on a wire. Turns out, one was a Northern Rough-winged Swallow -- which I've never seen before. And the other was a Cave Swallow. And, there is always a Western Kingbird around it seems. I didn't spend time trying to capture them in flight. I might go back and see what I can capture.
Oh... I also got a cute Canyon Wren singing its heart out. The video is really jittery but you get the idea.
