Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory

Posted on | June 18, 2010 | No Comments

I know I have a backlog of posts to do, but today was fun so I have to start off with that.

Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory: whodathunk it? When I asked some moms if they’ve heard of bird observatory/water treatment plant in Austin they’d never heard of it. I’m not sure I remember where I heard of such a thing either. Thanks to Google, we found it and got directions to boot.

We brought our binoculars, a bag of Pirate’s Booty, bottles of water and our quiet voices. You’re supposed to whisper to keep the birds from flying off, they say. I think someone yelled before we got there, though. But that’s ok, it was fun anyhow and for several reasons.

1) The drive.

How can one not be tempted to take a dirt-ish road? Especially when one is in a truck. This is what the whole drive was like: literally one lane, narrow and at times bordered on either side by water. “Mom, don’t turn too much to the right!” was something heard often from J in the back when we were driving. It didn’t take long for them to realize that mom was driving something like 5 mph and it was fun to stand up and feel the bumps and dips as we went along. Actually, I could end the list with that. That was too much fun!

Wait, what, no hike? No hike. You’ll see later.

2) The scenery.

It’s not every day you get to drive through a water treatment facility. Well, unless you worked there, I suppose.

The water was pretty and bordered by lots of trees and pretty plants which is probably what attracts the birds in the first place.

This plant looks almost like that wild plant that grows in the Philippines that people would cook and eat:

3) The birds.

Well, we didn’t get to see the endangered black-capped vireo. We did manage to see a few of these guys which are new to us:

Grackles, but female ones only (not sure why):

They seem to be yelling at each other (yes, shot through a window, I’ll explain later):

A few sparrows (didn’t catch on camera) and lots and lots and lots of swallows!

The swallows (I think that’s what they are) were all over the place, swooping across the little lane we were driving/bouncing around on.

They made sure there were lots of homes for birds…

…and bats!

It didn’t take long for us to get to a structure that was built for bird observation. My youngest noted right away that it was seldom used owing to the fact that there were spider webs all over the place.

There was no way that I was going to stick my finger near this orb weaver so you could get a good sense of scale. While I know they’re not aggressive, believe me when I say this thing was huge and so apparently well fed.

There was no shortage of predatory insects at all.

This guy wanted to hitch a ride. I think he knew the yellow jackets and giant spiders were waiting to get him.

Incidentally, this was Joshua’s door and I didn’t flick it away for him (he used his brother’s door instead). I used to be a lot less afraid of bugs but the bug-fearing people in my life have rubbed off on me. I mean, I know these spiders rarely get people but when you see them having a family reuinion it’s hard not to shake the camera as you snap. It’s a symptom of the heebie jeebies.

So. Why no hike?

1.) Snakes. Alright, admittedly just one snake. But this was a water treatment facility and as soon as I see a snake skitter into the water across our little driving path, my first thought was “water moccasin” and “aggressive” and “no more hike for me today.”

2.) Bugs, bugs, bugs.

No, these weren’t biting bugs at all. The shot above was taken just a couple of minutes after we got back in the car when we realized we didn’t feel like sitting in the bird observation structure with the nasty bugs (and possibly snake but I didn’t want to draw the boys’ attention to the big hole in the ground). We rather liked sitting in the truck and bouncing at 5 mph.

But we opened the window at some point and a whole bunch of these bugs flew in. It quickly became obvious why the insect-loving swallows, grackles, bats and dragon flies were hanging out in major population numbers. This place was a massive buffet! They just had to fly around with their mouths open and they were guaranteed a full belly. As soon as our windows opened, those bugs saw their ticket to living a full life expectancy (probably a matter of just days, though).

The boys didn’t enjoy that part much at all. I did obligingly open the windows once more to “let the bugs out” only to let in their extended family. What’s on our truck interior fabric is no fancy pattern, those are bug guts.

That being said, we did have a good time. The boys got a tiny thrill when they realized that we would have to back up a long way if we ever met oncoming traffic. We even ran into a group of homeschoolers we knew while we were there. I’m sure we’ll head back there just for kicks since it’s really close to the airport and it’s free.

Oh, here’s stuff we wanted to see but certainly didn’t get to: