A visit to Hornsby’s Bend

There’s a wastewater treatment plant just north of the Colorado River and three minutes from the cell phone waiting lot at the airport. This is a game changer for me–I already like making the airport run, and now it’s paired up with an easy visit to three big ponds with several boatloads of cool birds, if cool birds could be persuaded to get on the boats. Yesterday I saw at least two new-to-me species, and, pending ID, probably more. I’ll edit this post as soon as I figure out what I was looking at.

turtle sticking head out of the water — Before I get to the birds, here is a turtle. There are so many turtles here, and they pop their heads up. I saw eight at once the last time I was here.

Air Force vintage plane — It’s always fun to watch the planes land. They’re usually commercial jets, and I thought this was a small private plane until I looked at the photo. It turns out to be a vintage Air Force two-passenger plane, and I’d love to know why it’s flying and why it’s landing at Austin-Bergstrom.

Kingfisher — Killdeer are really pretty birds and it always feels special when I see them.

Brown speckled bird — A new bird for me, a semipalmated sandpiper. Rosemary told me they are known for their dramatic chest-bumping (with their beautiful pecs) and I got to see it in the next photo.

brown speckled birds tussling — Pectoral sandpipers having a moment of drama

Pair of blue winged teals — Blue winged teals out for a spin around the pond.

Black-necked stilts have very long and very red legs.

A gathering of the littles: lesser yellowlegs on the left, least sandpiper on the right. Sandpipers are known casually as “peeps” among birders but I don’t think I’m quite there yet.

Sandpipers and a coot — So many least sandpipers! And a coot.

Sandpiper — Semipalmated sandpiper with a little bug

Turtle sticking its head out of the water — Let’s end with another turtle.

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