Texas is without a doubt a fantastic place to bird; I don’t think any serious birder would disagree. Texas is also a huge state with a fantastic variety of habitats and an impressive bird list making the first statement true. With all of that in mind if I was asked what is the one single most exciting part of Texas birding I would have to say it is the spring migration. People come from all over the world to catch the warblers, buntings, cuckoos, grosbeaks, tanagers, flycatchers, shorebirds and more as they migrate across and around the Gulf of Mexico. The most famous place to observe the migration has to be a little town on the gulf just east of Houston called High Island. Even though High Island is a tiny town (population roughly 450 people), I would be willing to bet that if you went and asked any half-way serious birder they have heard of it and may have even visited there.

So what’s the big deal about High Island? If you happen to be there on the right spring day when the weather is just right you will be overwhelmed by all of the migrant birds filling every tree and bush. Days like these are few and far between, not necessarily happening every year, but if you hit one you will never forget it. Most of spring migration is a bit less impressive than a massive fallout but still very rewarding. On a good day a birder can tick off 20+ warbler species as well as a bunch of other colorful songbirds and that keeps people visiting places like High Island along the Texas coast every spring.

After a nice birding day at the end of a spring migration many years ago, one of my birding mentors said, “This whole thing happens again in reverse this fall.” Of course this made total sense but for some reason fall migration didn’t quite get the publicity of the spring. Now that I have had a chance to experience more than a few fall migrations here on the upper Texas coast I have seen how rewarding they can be. Some of my best migration days have been in the fall, and though they never quite measure up to a real spring fallout a good fall day can deliver the goods.

This past weekend was the first good push of songbird migrants for fall 2012 and over a couple of days I photographed 15 species of warblers, 4 species of vireo, cuckoos, tanagers, orioles, assorted flycatchers, lots of shorebirds and plenty of raptors. All of this left me excited about the rest of the fall.

On the songbird front, you get a different mix of species here in the fall than you do in the spring. For example, in the fall birds like Canada and Mourning Warblers are more common while birds like Blackpoll Warbler are non-existent. Another obvious difference is that you will see a wider variety of plumages with all the hatch-year birds. Even adult birds can look different from their spring plumage making birding, even more interesting.

Hawkwatch is another feature associated with fall migration. As the various raptors head south for the winter they can create quite a spectacle. Researchers have set up observation points along the various hawk migration routs in an attempt to assess their numbers. On the upper Texas coast one of these observation points is a large tower at Smith Point. When the weather conditions are prime thousands of hawks can be seen overhead at once.

As fall migration progresses our summer breeders like Prothonotary Warbler and Painted Bunting disappear and are replaced by birds like Yellow-rumped Warbler, Hermit Thrush, various ducks, raptors and more. This certainly is a great time of year to be birding in Texas with excitement riding in with every cool front.