Bird count along the Bosque River Trail August 9, 2026. Bird on a wire.

Weather - clear, no wind, temp ~75 degrees at 7:10 am, very humid. Temp supposed to reach about 100 degrees today.

Rain - there hasn’t been any for about three weeks. It’s very dry. The ground is cracking in many places. The river north of the park is mostly dry except for a few large remnant puddles.

Bird types - the number of bird types I saw today was low. After I left the park I walked for about a mile and a half and saw only two birds. I normally see about twenty in this stretch of the BRT. It’s so dry that many of the birds may have left the area in search of water.

Black Belly Whistling Duck - For the first time ever, I saw a Duck perched on a telephone wire between two telephone poles. It was a Black Belly Whistling Duck. A Duck sitting on a telephone wire just looked funny. I did get several good photos of the duck.

Green Heron - I saw a lone Green Heron sitting high up in a tree near the river.

Carp - I saw a large Carp moving around the fish nest area. The Carp was hoovering something up. Unfortunately I think it was probably eating Perch eggs. The Carp looked to be around two feet long. I took several photos of the Carp. I could see some Perch still hanging around the nest area, but the nests were hard to distinguish.

Bird types 17 - 16 Number of birds - 101

16 Grackles

15 House Sparrows

11 Robins

9 Cardinals

9 House Finches - one flock - near the trashcan just south of the dam

5 Mississippi Kites

5 Mockingbirds

5 Starlings

5 Vultures - type unknown - they were probably Black Vultures, but they were two far away to differentiate

4 White Winged Doves

4 Black Belly Whistling Ducks

4 Western Kingbirds

3 Red Bellied Woodpeckers

2 Eastern Phoebes

1 Crow

1 Green Heron

1 Black Vulture

1 Unknown - yellow belly, gray-green top, white-black-white wing stripes. Probably a White Eyed Vireo but I only saw it briefly.