Bird count along the Bosque River Trail August 31, 2026. Belted Kingfishers having fun.
Weather - clear, no wind, temp ~80 degrees at 7:00am. ¾ waning gibbous Moon visible in western sky. Temp supposed to be ~100 today.
Bird count - types moderate, numbers low
Belted Kingfishers - I saw two belted Kingfishers today. They seemed to be having a great time. Instead of fleeing low along the river channel these two Kingfishers were flying up in the treetops. They were chasing one another. Sometimes they were flying from tree to tree, and at other times they were flying ovals above the trees from the footbridge to the Graham Steet Bridge. They were making the loud chittering sound of Belted Kingfishers the whole time. This went on for about ten minutes before the Kingfishers flew out of sight. I’ve seen this behavior once before. A few years ago I saw two Belted Kingfishers doing the same thing but about a mile upstream. In fact this was the first time I saw a Belted Kingfisher. Pretty neat display today.
Green Herons - Just before the Belted Kingfisher started tearing around the treetops, I saw two Green Herons flying up and down the river channel. The pair of Kingfishers flew under the footbridge and disappeared south down the river channel. As I walked a few tens of feet up the BRT I saw a third green Heron on a dead tree in the river. This Green Heron sat on a branch of the tree for a while. Then it walked up the tree branch it was on until it reached the top. Then it flew off into a nearby tree and disappeared.
Puddles - There isn’t much to report on the puddles. I saw nothing in Puddle 3 and 4. A Great Blue Heron was in Puddle 2, and Puddle 1 had a lot of small black catfish in it.
Types of birds - 19 - 20 Numbers of birds - 72 - 73
Number Type
10 grackles
9 Robins
7 Cardinals
6 Barn Swallows
5 White Winged Doves
5 House Sparrows
4 Mourning Doves
4 Yellow Warblers
4 Mockingbirds
3 Green Herons
2 Belted Kingfishers - a pair
2 Eastern Phoebes
1 Black Belly Whistling Duck - flying south
1 Bluejay
1 Carolina Wren
1 Blue Gray Gnatcatcher
1 Red Bellied Woodpecker
1 Killdeer - heard but not seen