Kay and I left Boerne, TX yesterday after Jean was able to get a ride to the San Antonio airport and we headed for Austin. We were pretty exhausted and really didn’t bird on the way up. We got to town, had low energy, found the Contemporary Art Museum closed for renovations, and walked around town a bit. We visited the capital, and found a very good vegan restaurant, True Food for dinner. Great food, slow service.
Today we got up and headed for an out of its usual range Swainson Warbler spot. The bird continues to be a nemesis for me, and we tried for 2 hours without luck at Booty’s Road Park. This is a nice riparian area beside a small river/large creek. Canyon wrens were singing, but not the Swainson’s warbler.
From here we visited Berry Springs Park in Georgetown, just a 6 minute drive from the other park. It has an active Eastern Bluebird trail, a Great Kiskadee that has been reported for a few days was seen after I overheard an Audubon field trip group pointing to it, and just a large birdy area.
The Audubon leader also told me of a road adjacent to the park where Dickcissel has been seen, and we visited there right after leaving. It was chock full of singing Dickcissels. Really cool to see so many of a bird I’ve only seen a very few times.

Then we couldn’t leave Texas without at least one visit to a Waste Treatment plant.
We went to Hornsby Bend STP and got nice looks at lots of shorebirds, including Least, Western, Semipalmated, Pectoral, Stilt, White-rumped and Baird’s sandpipers, Lesser Yellowlegs, Wilson’s phalarope, Black-bellied plover (apparently rare there, ebird questioned).
Tonight we hope to see the 1.7 million Mexican Free-tailed bats take flight from the Austin bridge over the Colorado River.