Wing Tips
From the Panhandle to the coast, Texas is a birders’ paradise—especially in the spring. A guide to sixty spots that will leave you all atwitter.
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Central Texas and the Edwards Plateau
SO MUCH OF TEXAS’ INTRINSIC BEAUTY IS austere, even forbidding, but Central Texas is the state’s picture postcard. Springs bubble and seep up to feed creeks that ripple through the countryside. Wildflowers paint the roadsides in the spring. Bird-ing trips here are not just long hauls to get somewhere but can be a pleasure in and of themselves. Although for convenience I’ve lumped several geographic areas into one section, they do have a loose similarity, at least in what they are not: not Piney Woods, not coast, not desert. Species from other areas meet and blend here, but of all the birds that people come to see, two stand out—the rare and endangered golden-cheeked warbler and black-capped vireo. Of the two, the warbler is the more threatened because its habitat is more restricted: It nests only on the Edwards Plateau. The vireo is basically just a little gray guy with a black head; the warbler is more striking, with bright yellow cheeks surrounded by a black cap, black throat, and black shoulders. You have a chance of seeing both of them at Lost Maples and Dinosaur Valley state parks and the warbler at Meridian State Park. But I have to tell you that, while these are cute birds, others are just as appealing. Personally, I’d rather see a green kingfisher—a lilliputian kingfisher no bigger than a mockingbird—any day.
Day 1: Neal’s Lodges in the town of Concan, Park Chalk Bluff
Day 2: Kerr Wildlife Management Area, thirteen miles west of Hunt on FM 1340 (visitors are strongly advised to call in advance because some areas are restricted: 830-238-4483); Lost Maples State Park
Day 3: Hornsby Bend Wastewater Treatment Plant, Bastrop State Park, McKinney Roughs (a new nature preserve owned by the Lower Colorado River Authority; from I-35 in Austin, drive 19 miles east on Texas Highway 71 to the main entrance, open Tuesday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sundays 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.; or drive 18.4 miles and turn left on Pope Bend Road, then drive 2.5 miles to the back entrance, open dawn to dusk; it’s a 1.5-mile walk from the main entrance or almost 2 miles from the back entrance to good birding sites along the river; $3 fee; more information at 512-303-5073)
Extra day: Dinosaur Valley State Park, Meridian State Park (these are not close to other sites but are good for golden-cheeked warblers and black-capped vireos)
Trans-Pecos and Big Bend
THERE’S A SAYING THAT APPLIES TO WEST Texas: It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from there. The vast canyons and scrubby, arid flatlands define high and lonesome, and yet the area’s widely scattered lakes and rivers and springs provide some of the richest birding in the state. Big Bend in particular is an obligatory destination for birders all over the world. I once sat next to a German doctor on a flight to El Paso; he told me in excellent English that he and his wife had attended a convention in Houston and were now on their way to see the birds of Big Bend. “You’ve heard of Big Bend?” I asked. He said that all of his outdoorsy friends back home knew about Big Bend. Fortunately, he and his wife planned to stay a week, because they would need it: More than 450 species—half the birds in the United States and Canada—have been seen in the park’s 800,000-plus acres. The couple was particularly keen on spotting two Big Bend luminaries: the Lucifer hummingbird, distinguished by its dashing iridescent purple throat feathers, and the Colima warbler, an exceedingly rare (if slightly blah-looking) gray-backed, mustard-yellow-rumped bird that nests in Texas only in the Chisos Mountains from late March to early September.
But Big Bend is, of course, not the only extraordinary birding spot in West Texas. To mention only one other, Guadalupe Mountains National Park abounds in species that you seldom find east of the Rockies and the western United States, such as big, imposing black-and-blue Steller’s jays and acrobatic little mountain chickadees; indeed, the park is less than an hour’s drive southwest of Carlsbad, New Mexico. A lot of the really rare birds, like spotted owls, are at the higher elevations and require a tough hike, but McKittrick Canyon is comparatively easy. Peregrine falcons, those feathered dive-bombers, nest on its high cliffs, and—an added bonus—its stands of big-toothed maples turn flame colored every fall.
First weekend: Big Bend National Park (Rio Grande Village, Boquillas Canyon, Chisos Mountains)
Second weekend: Davis Mountains area (starting at Fort Davis, drive the loop formed by Texas highways 166, 118, and 17, including Davis Mountains State Park), Balmorhea State Park, Balmorhea Lake (all these make one full day or two sparse days)
Third weekend, day 1: Guadalupe Mountains National Park (McKittrick Canyon, Pine Springs, Frijole Springs); if you have time, Hueco Tanks State Park (visitors are advised to call in advance because some areas are restricted: 915-857-1135)
Day 2: Franklin Mountains State Park, Fred Hervey Water Reclamation Ponds, Feather Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, and the neighborhoods around the El Paso Country Club (take exit 11 off I-10 North, turn left on Mesa Street, and drive about one mile to Vista del Monte street; park and walk the area)
Panhandle and Western Plains
THE SCENERY IN THE PANHANDLE IS SNEAKY. You’ll be driving along those endless plains and cultivated fields, flat as a rug, when without warning the terrain will begin to rise and fall a bit. Hmmm, you’ll think, this is better. And then—wham—there will be some drop-dead-gorgeous canyon, walls striped in every imaginable shade of russet and ocher, set against a sky as blue as a gas flame. Or you’ll be wondering where the next service station is when you notice that the landscape actually has some green in it, that in fact it’s downright pretty, gently rocking and rolling along. While this doesn’t happen all over the Panhandle and Western Plains, it does occur around Palo Duro and Caprock canyons and way up in the northeast corner of the Panhandle, along the Canadian River.
Panhandle birding is mainly a winter endeavor because that’s when vast numbers of waterfowl and other birds from the northern and western United States camp out on and around the area’s lakes. So you must be prepared for cold weather and winds whipping the pages of your field guide. You must also be prepared to do a lot of traveling, because the better birding areas are scattered all over the place. But you’ll be rewarded with species that simply don’t get any farther south. One Palo Duro Canyon attraction is the northern shrike. A survivalist of the avian world, this gray-and-black bird stocks up for hard times by impaling a stash of grasshoppers and other insects on thorns and barbed wire.
Day 1: Palo Duro Canyon State Park, Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, and if you have time, Caprock Canyons State Park
Day 2: Lake Marvin, Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area
Piney Woods and Northeast Texas
THIS IS THE ANTI-TEXAS—THE WET PART. Whereas the rest of the state has “Old West” written all over it, the Piney Woods has “Deep South.” On perfect April or October days the air here is moist and cool, but come summer, all that humidity will be plastering your hair to your forehead and helping to breed condor-size mosquitoes. Things grow like crazy here: Dark green moss furs the trunks of pines; in a tea-colored marsh, rows of shelf fungus sprout from a log like ranks of turtles basking in the sun; a newborn mushroom, as stubby and pink as a piglet’s snout, pokes up through the dead leaves and pine needles. The area’s lakes—even those that are shallow enough to wade across—look mysterious and deep.
Many of the birds you can find in the Piney Woods live in other parts of Texas too, but some are mostly seen in the eastern United States. If I had to highlight just one, it would be the rare red-cockaded woodpecker, but it’s easier to find a brown-headed nuthatch: Just look for action along the ends of tree branches and twigs as these hyper little gray birds come barreling along, looking for insects. They also can be spotted moving headfirst down the trunks of pines.
First weekend, day 1: Huntsville State Park, Jones State Forest
Day 2: Angelina National Forest (Boykin Springs area), Martin Dies, Jr., State Park
Second weekend, day 1: Cooper Lake State Park, Lake Tawakoni
Day 2: Wright Patman Lake, Lake o’ the Pines, and if you have time, Caddo Lake State Park and Caddo Lake Wildlife Management Area
Selected Books and Resources Birder’s Guide to Texas, by Edward Kutac ($18.95, Gulf Publishing Company). Newly revised second edition with information on three hundred sites.
Birding Texas, by Roland Wauer and Mark Elwonger ($22.95, Falcon Publishing). Great new book with detailed maps and birding strategies for two hundred sites.
Field Guide to the Birds of North America ($21, National Geographic Society). Excellent one-volume bird identification guide.
A Guide to Field Identification: Birds of North America, by Chandler S. Robbins et al. ($15.75, Golden Books). Called the “Golden guide”; compact, good for beginners.
American Birding Association: publishes fine guides to the Texas coast and the Rio Grande Valley. Order from 800-634-7736 or www.abasales@abasales.com.
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department: offers two excellent free maps of dozens of sites on the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail. Order from 888-892-4737 or www.tpwd.tx.state.us/nature/birding. Also watch for the April issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine, which will have a special 42-page section on birding.
Texas birding clubs: For a list, contact Parks and Wildlife, above, or the Texas Audubon Society at 512-306-0225 or www.audubon.org/chapter/tx.
Acknowledgments The following people were very helpful in suggesting sites for this story: Victor Emanuel of Victor Emanuel Nature Tours; Cliff Shackelford and Mark Lockwood at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department; Brush Freeman and Petra Hockey, members of the Texas Bird Records Committee of the Texas Ornithological Society; Noreen Damude at the Texas Audubon Society; and Roland Wauer, a co-author of Birding Texas.
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