Every spring brings the promise of a legendary fallout spectacle in the oak mottes that dot the upper Texas coast. A lone mulberry tree may be festooned with a handful of Yellow-billed Cuckoos, an equal number of Scarlet Tanagers and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, a ravenously foraging mixed flock of Eastern warblers, and several Baltimore Orioles flashing molten gold. Famished and exhausted from an all-night 500 mile flight from the Yucatán across the Gulf of Mexico, whole waves of migrating passerines stall at the first available landfall. While there is never a guarantee of a major fallout, every day in April—even in the mildest of springs—brings a new array of birds. Visiting High Island or Sabine Woods a birder feels like a child entering a candy shop. This sense of happy anticipation is just part of the excitement of a trip to East Texas. Other treats include a chance to see the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker in the Piney Woods north of Beaumont, along with Brown-headed Nuthatches practicing acrobatics. A visit to the Big Thicket may produce elusive Swainson’s Warbler and Bachman’s Sparrow. The broad beaches at Bolivar Flats and the flooded fields at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge are regularly patronized by a huge variety of shorebirds. Depending on the day, flocks of hundreds of gorgeous Red Knots in breeding plumage at Bolivar share the area with both Snowy and Piping Plovers. Possible at Anahuac are American Golden-Plover and Upland Sandpiper. Here, too, are White, White-faced, and—occasionally—Glossy Ibises, and, of course, Roseate Spoonbills as well as virtually every heron and egret found in the United States. Far more localized, we’ll see Fish Crow with its distinctive nasal voice, and the coast-hugging Boat-tailed Grackle. Join us this spring for the famous migration spectacle and the regional specialties of the upper Gulf coast of East Texas.

Leader: Dylan Radin and Rick Taylor

Cost of East Texas includes guide service, all transportation, lodging, meals, and entrances beginning and ending in Houston, Texas—$1695.

Note: Transportation will be provided between Houston & McAllen if both East Texas and South Texas are combined—$3390.