Bird count along the Bosque River Trail August 29, 2026. A Belted Kingfisher shows off.

Weather - clear, no wind, temp ~80 degrees at 7:15am. Almost a full Moon to the west, last night an almost total lunar eclipse.

Bird count - types moderate - numbers moderate

Belted Kingfisher - Belted Kingfishers are difficult to see and to get pictures of. I’m beginning to think they have some sort of infrared sensing organ. I’ve only managed to get some fuzzy pictures of Belted Kingfishers, because they usually see me coming and take off flying along the river channel chittering at the top of their Kingfisher lungs. Today just after I crossed over the footbridge, I heard a Belted Kingfisher flying down the channel. Before I could move towards the river, it shot up into the big tree near the footbridge. I watched for a few minutes hopping I could see it and take a picture, but no such luck. I was just about to start up the BRT when the Kingfisher flew out of the tree and landed on top of one of the tall light towers used to illuminate a baseball field. It sat there in full view for about five minutes. I managed to get several good pictures of the bird. The light tower is probably at least 50 feet high, so some of the pictures are still fuzzy, but I got a few good ones.

Black Belly Whistling Ducks - Well, I haven’t seen any Black Belly Whistling Ducks in a while, so I thought they had all flow back home to Mexico. But today I saw a flock of about 21fly over the south end of the park, heading south. At one point they fly above the full Moon.

Killdeer - There were two Killdeer on the ground inside one of the baseball fields.

White Tailed Deer - I saw a total of five White Tailed Deer in two groups today. One group was composed of two fawns and a doe. The other group was one fawn and one doe. The second group may have been a repeat sighting of part of the first group.

Types of birds - 18 Numbers of birds - 99

Number‍ ‍Type

21 Black Belly Whistling Ducks - all in one flock

14 Cardinals

11 Grackles

11 Robins

10 House Sparrows

7 House Finches

6 Barn Swallows - zooming low over the river north of the dam

5 Mockingbirds

2 Starlings

2 White Winged Doves

2 Killdeer

1 Mourning Dove

1 Belted Kingfisher

1 Eastern Phoebe

1 Turkey Vulture

1 Great Crested Kingfisher

1 Great Blue Heron

1 Yellow Warbler

1 Yellow bird - type unknown