Staying at Llano is like waking up in the walk-in bird aviary at the San Diego Zoo, except it’s bigger, it doesn't have any fences, it has more birds, and we don’t have to leave. Nonstop cacophony of bird calls, heaviest in the morning, but continues the entire day. So many, we can’t sort it out well enough to even guess how many different calls, most of them exotic for us.
We’ve got black vultures soaring smoother than turkey vultures, wild turkeys wandering about among the axis deer, little scalloped inca doves, golden fronted woodpeckers, brilliant red and black vermillion flycatchers, the females with their pale salmon bellies, purple martins, black crested tufted titmouse, tiny verdin, blue-grey gnatcatcher, black and white warbler, yellow breasted chat, bright red summer tanager, clay colored sparrow, field sparrow, black throated sparrow, northern cardinal, blue grosbeak, indigo bunting, and ridiculously bright painted buntings everywhere, the females looking like large sparrow-sized chartreuse parakeets. Three new birds for us, the ruby throated hummingbird, bell’s vireo, and chuck-wills-widow.
