Birding around San Antonio

Journal Entry March 2010 (Written December 2010)
Thursday March 25th

This was a very busy day. We started birding in the parking lots of the hotel and adjacent McDonalds.

It continued from there as we used the Great Texas Birding Trail maps to find lots of great places. We got a day use pass for a couple of private lakes.

Black vultures on the wing

Tree full of Great-tailed grackles

There were more fields of flowers to be seen too...

After lunch at Appleby's, we walked around the Mission Espada grounds.

And after much driving about found the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center. We saw a great number of birds this day. Many of them new to me. The flock of black vultures on the dumpster at one of the private lakes was awesome in every sense of the word. And the grackles displaying for mates were amusing.

Bird list:
1. House sparrow
2. Common grackle
3. Great tailed grackle
4. Rock doves
5. Starlings
6. Cliff swallows
7. Mocking birds
8. Black vultures
9. Mourning doves
10. Cattle egrets
11. Scissor tailed flycatcher
12. Crows
13. Kildeer
14. Crested caracara
15. Turkey vultures
16. Barn swallows
17. Coots
18. Savannah sparrows
19. Great egret
20. Pied billed grebe
21. Mallards
22. Double crested cormorants
23. Common moorhen
24. Blue winged teals
25. Neotropic cormorants
26. Osprey
27. Glossy ibis
28. Spotted sandpiper
29. Song sparrow
30. Red tailed hawk
31. Red winged blackbird
32. Gadwall
33. Great blue heron
34. Eastern meadowlark
35. White winged doves
36. House finches
37. Cardinals
38. Cliff swallows
39. Kestrels
40. Northern shovelers
41. Blue gray gnatcatcher
42. Swamp sparrow
43. Loggerhead shrike
44. Common yellowthroat - Jenny only cause she was searching the reeds with her binocs

And finally a fixed wing cargo bird that kept psyching us out.

I found the book 'Bird Brains: The Intelligence of Crows, Ravens, Magpies, and Jays' by Candace Savage at the Refuge and read it to Nick and Melinda while we drove home. The family went to the new Chinese place in Italy for dinner. Surprisingly it was really good. Later a very tired group of us played Scrabble.

For photos see:
Birding day 2 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsemenza/sets/72157624106750920/
Mission Espada - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jsemenza/sets/72157623982568747/