Birding / Migration
Migration is the spectacle that makes Texas famous, and it comes twice a year - millions of birds funneling through on the flyway. Time a trip to it and you'll see why birders plan their whole year around Texas.
| Season | When | The show | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peak season: Spring | Apr-May | The showstopper - warblers, tanagers, orioles, and buntings pour north, and after the long flight across the Gulf they can drop onto the coast in a 'fallout' that fills the trees. | High Island (upper coast) |
| Peak season: Fall | Sep-Oct | Songbirds head back south - plus the hawk river: hundreds of thousands of raptors (sometimes topping a million) funnel overhead. | Hazel Bazemore Park (Corpus Christi) |
| Winter | Nov-Mar | Whooping cranes, sandhill cranes, and huge flocks of ducks and geese settle in across the coast and plains. | Aransas (coast), Panhandle plains |
| Summer | breeding season | The specialties nest - golden-cheeked warblers in the Hill Country, Colima warblers at Big Bend, and the Valley's tropical birds. | Hill Country, Big Bend, the Valley |
The two peak seasons - spring and fall - are when birders plan their trips.
Spring
A 'fallout' is what birders call it when a wave of exhausted migrants drops out of the sky all at once - usually when a cold front meets them right after they've crossed the Gulf. At a place like High Island in April, the trees can fill with warblers and tanagers in numbers you'll never forget. It's the most famous spectacle in American birding, and it happens on the Texas coast.
Houston Audubon - High Island ->Fall
Each fall at Hazel Bazemore County Park near Corpus Christi, HawkWatch counters have tallied anywhere from a few hundred thousand to more than a million raptors in a single season - the largest hawk migration in the U.S. and Canada. Corpus Christi was named the 'Birdiest City in America' ten years running. Time it right (mid-September is the broad-winged hawk peak) and the sky fills with kettles of circling hawks.
HawkWatch - Corpus Christi ->Official sources
Seasonal viewing comes from TPWD and the wildlife trails; live migration activity from eBird; the High Island sanctuaries from Houston Audubon; the Corpus Christi hawk counts from HawkWatch International.
Caution: Peak days shift with the weather year to year. eBird's live maps are the best way to catch a wave while it's happening.
