Schiess: Out of Idaho to Colorful Texas

With two Baltimore orioles and three Scarlet tanagers in the Live oak, it looked like Christmas in April at the Smith Oaks Woods near Galveston, Texas. The tree was colorful, but not as stunning or exciting as the nearby rookery with all the herons, egrets, and cormorants nesting, fighting and flirting with alligators lurking below.

Charlie Allen had talked me into joining him on a trip to High Island, Texas, to see the warbler migration from South America through Texas on their way to the mid-western states. “We could see over 30 species of warblers if we get a north wind that forces the migrating birds to the ground after the cross the gulf,” Allen told me as we boarded the plane in Denver for Houston. This would be my first major birding trip out of Idaho.

Right off the plane we saw our first Texas bird, a Common grackle, the “crapple” bird of the South. They were everywhere, much like starlings, House sparrows and magpies around here. But our first birding stop was at the Boy Scout Woods in High Island where the Houston Audubon Society owns and maintains trails and water-drips through very thick vegetation. We quickly found that the fruit on the mulberry trees attracted a lot of birds.

As we parked the rental car, Charlie located several Rose-breasted Grosbeak, an Indigo bunting and a Scarlet tanager. The calling of the Northern Cardinals and Gray catbirds could be heard in nearby trees as we walked through the woods with about 20 other birders. The south wind that was blowing had carried most of the migrating birds farther inland, but we did find several species of warblers.

My goal for the trip was to observe the large Roseate spoonbill and the colorful Painted bunting. Charlie had guaranteed that I would see the spoonbills, but I was skeptical; so we were off to the Smith Oaks Woods and Rookery, another park owned and operated by the Audubon Society.

At the parking lot, a mulberry tree was full of colorful birds with Summer tanagers and several species of hummingbirds snacking on the berries with the grosbeaks, other tanagers and even some Baltimore orioles; but I could hear the busyness of the Rookery about a quarter of a mile away.

A horseshoe-shaped island on a large pond contained thousands of egrets, herons, cormorants, ibis and the beautiful pink spoonbills. It quickly became my favorite as I watched two male Great egrets fighting over the attention of a female; then three male spoonbills battled over a female that just could not be bothered; two alligators rested along the bank waiting for any snack that would fall from the busy nests.

It was a noisy but a beautiful experience for me.

My second goal of finding and observing a Painted bunting was a hard one. For two days we followed every lead we could to get one and then, with the last three hours of the trip I was finally able to observe three and get a few very poor photos of one high in a tree at Lafitte’s Cove Nature Reserve in Galveston.

In the two and a half days of wandering through southeast Texas we recorded 139 species of birds. As we ran out of time, we had located 16 species of warblers, Charlie’s favorites, as the south wind dominated the weather patterns carrying them further inland. My favorites had to be the Roseate spoonbills with the Summer tanagers, Scissor-tailed flycatchers and the colorful Purple Gallinule coming in close seconds to give color to the trees of Texas.