Birding in Texas

Birding in Big Bend Country - Texas

Big Bend National Park is home to over 400 bird species, more than any other National Park in the United States. Some of these birds, such as the famous Colima Warbler and the Lucifer Hummingbird, can be found nowhere else in the United States. Other uniquely southwestern or Mexican species are the Inca Dove, the Elf Owl, the Mexican Jay, and, of course, the Roadrunner. Big Bend is bliss for the devoted birder.

Birding in Panhandle Plains - Texas

The canyons around Amarillo serve as superb bird habitats, and Mountain Bluebirds are common here. The area around Caprock Canyon is home, for example, to Bald Eagles, and shorebirds such as Avocets and Yellowlegs set down here during spring migration. As a whole, the Panhandle Plains are most notable for raptors such as Prairie Falcons and Golden Eagles, the lakes host geese and ducks in great numbers, and if you're lucky and careful, you can see a Whooping Crane or massive migratory groups of Sandhill Cranes.

Birding in Hill Country - Texas

Hill Country is also full of raptors, owls and hawks and even caracaras, as well as a host of songbirds and insect eaters, warblers and flycatchers. Austin is also home to cormorants and herons and kingfishers, and those rare Golden-cheeked Warblers and Black-capped Vireos. A little further west, western specieis like thrashers and verdins and Yellow-Headed Blackbirds become more frequent. Look out for the Green Jay.

Birding in Prairies and Lakes - Texas

Those very urban lowlands wouldn't seem to be much of a bird haven, but Texas's urban centers are often friendly to the green. The lowlands act as a convergence of bird species of West, East, and Central Texas, and often of deeply endangered bird species. Or, at least, Dogwood Canyon does, as the only nesting site for the Golden-cheeked Warbler and the Black-capped Vireo in the Dallas area, and the only site for the Black-chinned Hummingbird in East Texas. The lowlands are generally a good place to spot night-herons, teals, sandpipers, and grebes near the lakes, and buntings, woodpeckers, and tanagers away from it.

Of special note in Fort Worth are the colony of Monk Parkeets and a Bald Eagle nest. And speaking of eagles, the small town of Emory, the "Eagle Capital of Texas," is home to over 50 nesting sites.

Birding in Piney Woods - Texas

Where coast segues into Piney Woods, the birder will found species of the woodland east, such as Blue Jays, Carolina Chickadees, and Eastern Towhees. The state bird of Texas is the Northern Mockingbird and this is where you can find it. Along the shores of beach and reservoirs live such birds as the Great Egret and the Green Heron. Indeed, the Piney Woods are a haven for larger shorebirds.

Birding in Gulf Coast - Texas

The Big Thicket Preserve, near Beaumont, is very much like Louisiana, with Kentucky Warblers and Louisiana Waterthrushes. While you're in the area, keep an eye out for Bachman's Sparrows and flocks of waterfowl near reservoirs. This is also near the entrance point for the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail.

Houston itself winters hummingbirds and Red-cockaded hummingbirds flock nearby. Galveston has its large groups of Black Terns and Magnificant Frigatebirds, but the birding gems are still farther south.

The Central Coast brings us Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, where the Whooping Crane winters. This is the most famous bird, but not the only gem of the Central Coast. As we travel that Central Coast and south, we see Caracaras, Gallinules, the Buff-bellied Hummingbird, the Reddish Egret.

Birding in South Texas Plains - Texas

The Rio Grande Valley tops off the diversity of Texas birds. Like Big Bend National Park, it hosts species found nowhere else, or found very rarely. Green Jays, Plain Chachalacas, Ferruginous Pygmy-owls, and Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet are some of the more famous species. This is also the home of the World Birding Center.