27 Southwest Highways
So where do you find migrant warblers and songbirds away from the coast? I wish I knew. Most state and county parks that have woodlands and a fresh water source are worth trying, but it is a bit hit and miss. If you have a limited amount of time to go birding, go out after a storm to see if there are any migrants that stopped to rest during the storm. For weekly migration reports go to ebird.org where they combine weather patterns across the U.S. with bird data to anticipate migration waves in large regions. It is a little tricky to know which regional forecast to follow for Texas, since we have areas in three of their regions—the Great Plains, West and Gulf Coast—but at least you can get an idea about whether it might be worthwhile heading out to bird in a given week. The Houston area is a very good location for the Fall migration of kites, raptors, hummingbirds, swifts, swallows, and woodland birds; go to houstonaudubon.org for fact sheets. Audubon Centers and birding hotspots at sewage and water treatment plants are often very good in the Fall for a variety of species because of the available water and insect life. I like the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center in San Antonio for winter waterfowl, but they have a great diversity of habitats with 300 species recorded and I think it should be good for migrants: see mitchelllake.audubon.org for directions and a bird list. This year we are going to try the Dallas area for migrants, starting with Cedar Hill State Park on Joe Pool Lake and including the Dogwood Canyon Audubon Center in Cedar Hill. There is also a Trinity River Audubon Center in Dallas that I haven’t been to yet.
Yellow-rumped Warbler, and American Redstart, while others are closer to eye level, such as the Prothonotary and Golden-winged Warblers. The waterthrushes, Overnbird and Swainson’s Warbler are at ground level. A good publication for the habits of warblers is “On the Warblers of Texas” by Clifford E. Shackleford, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Fourth Edition.
The biggest problem is finding that sought-after concentration of woodland migrants. I haven’t found any reliable warbler-spotting locations for the Fall migration that are not on the Gulf Coast. I have had good luck in Port Aransas in September, and in the Rio Grande Valley in October. The International Birding Festival occurs in early November in the Rio Grande Valley, centered on Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park, but with many other great hotspots in the area for Fall migrants. To see a lot of hummers, I recommend Rockport on the Gulf Coast, which has an annual hummingbird festical in September where the hummers gather and feed voraciously waiting for a good north wind to carry them across the Gulf of Mexico. While you won’t see them in flight, they do stop to rest and eat along the way toward the coast, so keep your feeders up through September and provide fresh water as well as sugar water. The hummers are mostly needing protein from insects, so don’t spray insecticides.