The day dawned on my last full day in Austin, and since Maggie had to go to work until 5:30pm I was stuck at her house for much of the day. Luckily, this isn't a problem for a birder, especially a birder outside her normal range. After Maggie left for the day I grabbed my binoculars and plopped myself on a chair in her backyard. I was determined to sit there until I saw at least one lifer.
It took almost exactly two hours, but finally a male Lesser Goldfinch (lifer!) flew into the yard and perched just long enough for me to get a good look at him! During this mini backyard bird survey I also spotted 13 other species including Black Vultures, Turkey Vultures, White-winged Doves, Chimney Swifts, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Blue Jays, Carolina Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Northern Mockingbird, European Starlings, Northern Cardinals, Great-tailed Grackles, and House Sparrows. By 10:30am I was ready to retreat into the house since the mosquitoes were getting aggressive, and the coolness of the morning had melted into the heat and humidity of the day.
I spent the rest of the day catching up on entering eBird reports and other odds and ends. As soon as Maggie got home from work, we headed out to experience one of the famous food truck parks in Austin. We chose to go to The Picnic which is located along Barton Springs Road. It was pouring rain when we left the house, but the radar showed that it would stop soon. When we arrived at the food truck park, we discovered that most of the trucks were closed. I assume that the rain had prompted them to shut down early, but there were a few still open. I chose to have a delicious burger and fries from The Mighty Cone, along with a very tasty craft root beer . Our food, true to the name of the truck, was served in a very unique cone-shaped container.
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| The Mighty Cone food truck |
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| Our food cones in their special holder. |
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| A delicious craft root beer. |
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| The famous Hey Cupcake! |
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| They even have a love lock fence |
After dinner we headed to downtown Austin for some sightseeing and shopping. We didn't stay there for long though because I needed to get plenty of sleep for the next day's adventures.
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| Downtown Austin, Texas |
Stay tuned....the next post will have bird photos, I promise!
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