Shield Ranch 2017-05-13

On May 13 and 14 I was fortunate to be able to join Hill Country Conservancy on their annual EPIC campout. This year it was at the Shield Ranch just southwest of Austin.

There was one remarkable wildlife observation I wanted to record here. On the afternoon of the 13th I was sitting with other campers under the trees by one of the El Ranchito camp sites when I heard a Common Nighthawk vocalize. I looked up and started seeing several Common Nighthawks flying roughly southwest over the trees. I thought there were at least 20, and another birder in the group jumped up and ran out from under the trees to estimate 37. Less than a minute later the same birds flew back over, northeast, seemingly back to where they came from. I only heard a single vocalization.

What happened? I've never seen this many Common Nighthawks in one group. My guess is that this was a group migrating north together. This species is mostly nocturnal and usually migrates at night, so they were all probably roosting somewhere nearby when something disturbed them. They all flew up, circled around, and returned to their roosting site or somewhere close by. That's the best I can come up with!

Some of the other common birds I saw or heard were Painted Buntings, Northern Cardinals, Dickcissels, Wild Turkey, Northern Bobwhite, Rufous-crowned Sparrows, Field Sparrows, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and Golden-cheeked Warblers. Here's an eBird list from the morning of the 14th:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37015203

See the attached observations. Here are mostly the same photos on Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikael_behrens/albums/72157683812692136

Posted on 14 June, 2017 00:13 by mikaelb