Every summer, I search for new places around Austin to hike and look at birds and other wildlife. This summer, I stumbled upon The Hornsby Bend Bird Observatory, located at the City of Austin’s Biosolids Management Plant/Center for Environmental Research.

It’s right on a bend in the Colorado, and the combination of river and the treatment ponds draws a huge variety of birdlife such as this Black-necked Stilt.

There are trails along the river, and a road that winds around the ponds so you can walk or drive, which can be nice for bird watching since your car can be used as a blind, which is useful for observing more skittish birds like this Snowy Egret.

I’ve visited three times over the past few weeks, and have seen the following birds (*’s by new ones):

• Northern Cardinal
• Black vulture
• Northern Mockingbird
• Little Blue Heron
• Barn Swallow
• Cliff Swallow
• Great-tailed Grackle
• Snowy Egret
• American Coot
• Spotted Sandpiper *
• White-eyed Vireo *
• Killdeer
• Black-necked Stilt *
• Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
• Red-winged Blackbird
• Brown-headed Cowbird *
• Mourning Dove
• Green Heron

In addition to these, I saw a few “mystery ducks” that looked like Blue-winged Teal, but not quite, as well as a bunch of “peeps” (small sandpipers) that I was unable to distinguish, lacking as I do the birding chops to distinguish between the Semi-palmated, Least, and Western Sandpipers. Oh, well, I guess that gives me a reason to go back.

When my Dad and I went last week, we saw huge flocks of Red-wings and Swallows as well as large numbers of Egrets and Little Blues. I can’t wait to see the birds that show up once migration begins.

It’s not all pretty birds, of course. There are pretty spiders like this graden spider also.

The spiders are good as there are very large flocks of gnats, flies and other bugs around those ponds. When we got back in the car to leave, it was like sitting in a plague of insects. But closing the car up in the heat for an hour while we stopped for lunch cooked them pretty well.

I took this shot of the Texas Capitol about a year ago while walking around downtown with my camera on a clear and lovely February day.

Things come to mind…

When I worked downtown, I used to eat lunch on the lawn surrounded by statues and trees, statutes and lawmakers.

One week back in the early ’90s, word had gotten out that Willie was going to play a free show on the south steps. It was a Sunday afternoon, I think, and I decided to check him out. I rode my bike down to the capitol and waited with the small crowd. Finally, Willie came out and stood in front of the single microphone. He had no band; it was just him and Trigger, all beat up and full of holes.

He played a solo acoustic set that included many of his most famous tunes. I remember the weather was beautiful, the crowd was happy, and Willie seemed so pleased to just be making music for a small group of fans in his home city. Afterwards, he stayed up on stage while people passed him boots, belts, LPs, guitars, and posters to sign. He joked with the audience and didn’t leave until he’d signed everything that anybody wanted signed.

In college a budy of mine and I used to rollerblade in there at night, gliding through the silent halls.

Spinning under the dome is kind of cool too.

And I think of Star Wars: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” (I’m not talking about that Willie show either…)

A few months ago, my wife and I were on our way to a party her company was hosting at a downtown club. We had had dinner and had some time to kill so we stopped for a pint at Bull McCabe’s on Red River. We sat at a rickety table on the porch, enjoying the springtime weather and watched people walk up and down the street, drifting from club to club.

The homeless shelter is right around the corner so along with music lovers, there tends to be an abundance of homeless people mingling about the area, often indistinguishable from the music fans until they ask for a handout.

One guy, probably in his mid-thirties, came shuffling onto the porch. He wore a few extra sweaters under a grimy red coat out of which a white cable grew like a vine that terminated in his ears. I wondered if he actually had an ipod under there somewhere.

“Hey,” he said, walking up to our table. “You got any cash?”

My wife and I shook our heads. “Sorry, no.”

He stared at our beers and looked back at us. “What about them?”

I shrugged. “No cash.”

“Can you charge me a beer then?”

“No.”

“Aw, come on, man, you can just get me a beer. I won’t bother you. You can afford another one.”

I didn’t say, yes, I could afford more, and had he asked, I might have bought him a burger, but he just stared at us, clearly annoyed, small muscles ticking beneath his face. “What do you do for a living?” he asked, his voice challenging, likely trying to prove to us that we made enough to buy him a beer.

“I’m a teacher,” I said.

His body language changed with that last word. He relaxed, making me realize for the first time just how wound up and intense he was under all those used-up old clothes. He took a polite step back. “Aw, man, I’m sorry. I won’t bother you. You have a good night. You’re good people.”

He backed out of the bar and smiled at us again as he shuffled down the street, leaving us to wonder what teacher he had had that made such an impression on him that he refused to bother a teacher. I also wondered what would have happened had I been an investment banker.

File this under I meant to blog about it a week ago…

A week ago Friday, we caught Sonic Youth at Stubb’s. Great show, as always, made even better by the fact that they weren’t touring in support of any album. Their most recent release was the brilliant (perfect, wonderful) rerelease of Daydream Nation (my favorite album).

I love seeing a great band with a long history free to play whatever they want rather than focusing on the new material. This time around, they played a few tracks from their most recent ’06′s Rather Ripped, “The World Looks Red” from Confusion is Sex and spent the rest of their show playing songs from Daydream Nation. To put it in perspective for me, this would be like going to see Pink Floyd and having them play Dark Side of the Moon. Sheer bliss.

For years, I’ve kept track of the Daydream songs I’ve heard them play (I haven’t missed an SY show in Austin since ’92). I’ve heard “Teenage Riot,” “Candle,” and “Eric’s Trip,” but Friday at Stubbs’s we were treated to all of those along with “The Sprawl” and my favorite of theirs “‘Cross the Breeze.” They even closed their set with all three songs form “The Trilogy.” Brilliant.

They sounded great, enormous like jet planes flying too close to the ground, their feedback noise jams drawing the thinnest line between order and chaos across the night.

I even bought a shirt.

The Meat Puppets opened. I’ve never seen them. but I’ve heard them. After the show, I wodered why I don’t have more Meat Puppets on my iPod.

Old folks around these parts tell of an abandoned settlement before Austin, before Waterloo.

An old journal, its pages yellowed and mouldy from the years, was discovered near Treaty Oak under the lesser known Agreement Oak (chopped down in 1881 to make room for a luxury high rise log cabin). The diary and a broken wagon wheel were all that was found among the bones and cattle skulls. The settlement had been wiped out, presumably by Comanches.

When they started reading the journal, which had to be translated from Spanish, the final entry sent chills down the spines of all who read it. It said (I’m paraphrasing, of course):

Everyone dead… All gone… Can’t… Breathe. No air. Eyes burning like hellfire. Ragweed… Fall Elm…

Nose running. Can’t see… Can’t… clear sinuses.

Drums… Drums in the deep…

Scholars presumed the text to be apocrypha from some breakaway sect’s Book of Mormon. Whatever it was, the warnings weren’t heeded.

(cross-posted at In the Pink Texas)

Every summer evening should end with sunset on a trail.

On the tail end of a bike ride yesterday, I wanted to make it an even 23 miles so I turned on a street near our house and found a trail leading to another neighborhood. I took the trail, which led to a cul-de-sac with a small nature preserve only .25 miles from home.

The preserve is mainly a small karst formation with a cave underneath. The sign said that the cave is 85 feet by 45 feet, but only 2 feet high at its highest. The cave entrances have been gated off in such a way that bats and other wildlife can get in and out, but snooping kids are prevented from entering.

Later in the evening I walked back up with my camera and see if I could get a few pictures.

This is one of the caves that had naturally collapsed so there was no need to block it off. It’s now just a two foot deep hole.

In addition to this dragonfly, I saw mockingbirds, white-winged doves and a number of deer that seemed to be running all around me, allowing only glimpses as they raced through the cedar. One of these days, I’m going to bring the long lens and some patience and try to shoot a deer.

I liked the look of this fallen tree, rotted and teeming with life.

These flowers ignited if only for a brief moment in the sun’s fading light.

I shot this as I was cruising up 610 towards the 290 exit in Houston this afternoon.

It’s a nothing shot, a throwaway of a sign, but it’s a sign I love to see.

Whether it’s coming home from an errand to Houston as today or returning from a longer trip, seeing the Austin sign makes me happy.

There’s just nothing like a sign that points to home.

Everyone wanted to stay out of my way while I was taking this picture. I suppose they didn’t want to ruin it, but legs walking by was what I wanted. I probably shot 100 images of people walking by, but these two were the winners – if having your legs show up on some random blog can be called winning – for being where I wanted them in the frame. The little heart tattoo on the one woman’s ankle is pretty cool, too.

I haven’t actually been to the Elephant Room in a very long time, which is a shame because I really like it there. Good jazz, and lots of places to sit.

Walking around downtown last week, I found myself focusing on the details of things. The colors and shapes that when added together make up whole buildings and even a city.

Windows are full of mystery. Things happen behind them that we can only imagine. Of course imagination creates far more interesting scenarios than reality.

Not every window will have something exciting going on behind it.

Sometimes, the only thing behind the window is a piece of wood.