Bird count along the Bosque River Trail June 7, 2026

Weather: Mostly cloudy, becoming clear, thunderstorms overnight, no wind T ~ 75 at 7:30 am, river high and muddy. Festival packing up.

Special event: Nighthawks - first ever identification

As soon as I got out of my car I heard a Black Belly Whistling Duck flying overhead. I looked up, saw the duck, and saw two other birds with crescent shaped wings. I have seen these types of birds before, but I’ve never been able to identify them because they flew fast, traveled in tight circles, and never landed. Today, however, one of the birds landed on a branch in a tree about fifty feet above my car. It was on a branch that I could see, and with my binoculars I identified the bird as a Nighthawk. Its partner flew around near the tree. I managed to get a few good pictures of the Nighthawk in the tree, and one not-so-great picture of the flying Nighthawk. I will post a couple of the Nighthawk pictures on this website.

Bird count: 26 species, 140 individual birds

Bird Type Number of birds

~30 Barn Swallows

23 Cardinals

17 Starlings

11 House Sparrows

7 Robins

6 Mississippi Kites

5 Grackles

5 Mockingbirds

4 Bluebirds

4 Mourning Doves

4 White-winged Doves

3 Scissortail Flycatchers

3 Turkey Vultures

2 Ducks - wild - flying - type unknown - not Black Belly Whistling Ducks as they had a clear quack

2. Nighthawks - a pair

2 Great crested Flycatchers

2 Bluejays

2 Eastern Phoebes

1 Black Belly Whistling Duck

1 Downy Woodpecker

1 Carolina Wren - probable

1 Sparrow - type unknown

1 Belted Kingfisher - heard but not seen

1 Chickadee

1 Tufted Titmouse

1 Red Bellied Woodpecker

1 Great Blue Heron