TEXAS COAST, HILL COUNTRY,
AND PINEY WOODS TOUR REPORT

April 21 – April 28, 2003

(To download a PDF version of this report that includes the complete listing of all sightings, click here.)

TOUR LEADERS:

Don Freiday, Scherman-Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary Director

David Womer, Scherman-Hoffman Wildlife Sanctuary Associate Naturalist

      This tour had the potential to be one of the birdiest North American adventures we’ve ever led, and, fortunately for our ten participants, it certainly was!  The Texas Coast is famous for “fallouts,” as concentrations of migrant landbirds pause after crossing the Gulf of Mexico.  We hit a good-sized fallout our very first day! Then it was on to the beautiful Hill Country, spectacular wildflower displays, and an avifauna with both eastern and western compliments, as well as the two Texas specialties, Black-capped Vireo and Golden-cheeked Warbler.  We finished the tour in the Piney Woods of East Texas for another specialty bird, Red-cockaded Woodpecker.  Great Mexican food and 267 species of birds spiced this trip.

TOUR REPORT

        On day one, we met in Houston and proceeded to Sabine Woods and a marvelous fallout of migrant songbirds, including dozens of orioles, Swainson’s and Gray-cheeked Thrushes, indigo buntings, and warblers of many kinds, including Cerulean.  Because songbirds depart from the Yucatan Penninsula the night before and fly 18-20 hours before they reach the coast, sometimes the best birding is in the afternoon.  And the birds are often tired, meaning eye-level close-range looks are sometimes the norm! Later, we scanned offshore at the Sea Rim State Park boardwalk, then visited the spectacular rookery at Port Arthur, where Yellow-crowned Night-Herons, Roseate Spoonbills, and Neotropic Cormorants croaked, groaned and fed young.

        We toured Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge (one of our favorite NWR’s) the next morning, enjoying Purple Gallinules, all 5 peep sandpipers in view at one time, and many alligators.  On the road out of Bolivar we were delayed by a cattle drive in the road.  On Bolivar, a Magnificent Frigatebird put in a well-timed close-range appearance right as we were leaving our lunch stop.  We enjoyed several tern and shorebird species on Bolivar Flats, as well as a lovely Reddish Egret.  We relaxed and watched the gulls from the Galveston Ferry, then feasted on great Mexican food in Galveston.

        We began a long day number three by walking the marsh at Anahuac looking for rails at dawn– and some of us glimpsed the Black Rail we flushed!  Monk Parakeets nested at Kemah, flying in and out of their huge ball-like nests.  After lunch, we set off on the long drive west to the Hill Country, passing marvelous wildflower displays, soaring Mississippi Kites, and a bonus Swallow-tailed Kite. 

        In the morning we were able to see just how beautiful our lodging was, set along the Rio Frio, the “best swimming hole in Texas.”  We birded Park Chalk Bluff, where highlights included Green Kingfishers along the Nueces River and at least 2 incredible Connecticut Warblers, rare anywhere but especially Texas!  Oh, and then there were our first Painted Buntings. . .and Roadrunner and. . . lots of great stuff.  We siesta’d in the afternoon, and some of us swam, finding out the Rio Frio wasn’t actually so cold after all.  After dinner the evening took us to a bat cave, where millions of Mexican Free-tailed bats emerged at sundown.

      We focused on some key target birds the next two days. Lost Maples State Park featured a very cooperative Golden-cheeked Warbler, but our first vigil for the elusive Black-capped Vireo ended with only a brief glimpse.  Happily, very early the next morning we scored on a good, though distant, look at the Vireo, and could leave the Hill Country content.  We spotted a perched Roadrunner in the desert scrub area near our lodging before we left, then made our way eastward towards San Antonio.  In the evening, we went into San Antonio to see the Alamo and explore the River Walk, San Anton’s downtown district with wonderful restaurants, Mariachi bands, and shops.

        On our final day, we traveled back across central Texas to Attwater Prairie Chicken NWR, where White-tailed Hawks perched and we had a chance to learn about the refuge’s namesake bird (but not see it – the region of the refuge with the chickens is generally off limits).  Our last lunch was some of the best Mexican of the trip. At day’s finish, Sam Houston National Forest produced a colony of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, returning on schedule to their nesting holes late in the afternoon.

        As one participant put it on the last day of the trip (paraphrasing Winston Churchill):  "Never have so few traveled so far, so fast, to see so many birds!"

(To download a PDF version of this report that includes the complete listing of all sightings, click here.)

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Bernardsville, NJ 07924
or email travel@njaudubon.org.

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