Painted Bunting
Painted Bunting
If you love birds, you will love the Highland Lakes area in the Texas Hill Country. Out of 900 bird species found in the United States, 600 can be found in the state of Texas. Many interesting birds migrate through the Highland Lakes Area and others spend the winter here.Members of the Highland Lakes Birding and Wildflower Society take part in the Annual Christmas Bird Count and identify 100 to 120 species each year. It is part of the National Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count.
One visiting couple, who spent the weekend on the west side of Lake Buchanan, spotted 27 species of birds in an outing one morning and spotted over 40 species during their weekend stay.
The American Bald Eagle winters at Lake Buchanan. Boat tours go up the lake to spot the nesting birds along the shore. The eagles arrive in the area in November and leave for the north in March and April. In January the annual Eagle count is taken in the area. A bald eagle pair with two young birds was spotted nesting about 100 yards off of Hwy 29 between Burnet and Llano in the winter of 2003/2004. They attracted tourists and bird lovers from over a 1,000 miles away to take photos of the bald eagle family. The nest is near the Llano river which provides them with plenty of fish. The eagles didn't seem bothered by all of the people stopping to take photos and hopefully the eagles will return year after year. Two male eagles and one female eagle returned to the nest in the fall of 2004 and on January 19, 2005 more eaglets hatched at the nest. To see more photos of the eagles, click on this web page: www.dmatney.com . |
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 Photos courtesy of Bob Smith  |
The Scissor-tailed Flychatcher is a remarkably beautiful bird in flight, opening and
shutting its extra long, nine inch tail like a pair of scissors. It closes the tail while
it is perching.The Scissor-tailed
Flycatcher is also called by other names such as scissortail, swallowtailed
flycatcher and Texas bird-of-paradise.
It can be very agressive, protecting its territory from larger birds such as owls, crows and hawks. |
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Great Blue Herons are a common sight along the lakes and rivers of the Texas Hill Country. It is fun to watch them fishing, standing completely motionless for minutes at a time while waiting for the right moment to strike. They are very graceful birds in flight as they are seen gliding over the
rivers and lakes. The photo above on the right is of a Great Blue Heron just taking off
into flight. |
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Mallards and other ducks are plentiful in the Highland Lakes area of the Texas Hill Country. |
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Gulls can be seen fishing in the lakes and rivers in the Highland Lakes
Area of central Texas.
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The photo of the Great Egret at the left was taken by Adam Tuomala at Lake Buchanan. |
Photo courtesy of Bob SmithRoadrunners are interesting birds which can be found in several areas of Texas. Seven very rare Painted Buntings were spotted eating seeds off of grass at a residents' home in Floyd Acres on the west side of Lake Buchanan. A few of these beautiful birds made their home there and are now regularly seen feeding at the bird feeder in the back yard.
In April of 2004 a flock of about 50 Yellow Headed Blackbirds landed in the yard of a home in Meadowlakes. These birds are not normally spotted in our area.
A flock of several hundred robins were migrating through the area and landed in a couple of vacant lots in Marble Falls. That was a sight to see!
DucksMaybe you read about the Blue-footed Booby that spent the summer a few years ago on Lake LBJ. Bird Watchers came from all over the country to view this bird. He stayed for several months on the lake. It was assumed that he had gotten lost and just made the lake his home for the summer. He was probably from the Gallapogos Islands.
Whooping Cranes, Canadian Snow Geese, Canadian Geese, Pelicans, Storks, Herons, Ducks and many other birds migrate through the area in the fall and the spring.
Wild turkeys are plentiful and can be spotted from the highways sometimes. They will occassionally be seen in flocks of 15 to 30 birds roaming the rural neighborhoods of the Highland Lakes Area, too.
Gull
If you would like to find a web page to help you identify birds, click here.
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If you have a photo or information you would like to ad to this page,
you can email us at: info@highlandlakes.com
