Texas to Florida, The Gulf Coast
They loft like sparks out of the forests of the Yucatan Peninsula — thrushes, warblers, tanagers, orioles — the hosts of North America's migratory songbirds. They fly north across the Gulf of Mexico and 20 or 30 hours later "fall out" to rest and refuel among the coastal woodlands that stretch from Texas to Florida.
But when a cold front penetrates the gulf and rain rakes the heavens, it drives the birds from the sky. Those that survive pile up like animate leaves in the outlying islands and chenier woodlands. Hundreds of birds, sometimes thousands, may gather in a strategic copse of trees. (Birders refer to these migratory gatherings as "fallouts".)
From late March to early May, in places like High Island, Texas; Cameron Parish, Louisiana; Dauphin Island, Alabama; and Florida's Dry Tortugas, birders gather like onlookers at a tragedy which, in a sense, they are.
But they also come to celebrate the tenacity of life and the brave return of spring — and, of course, to savor the other treasures of the Gulf States: the waterbirds and long-legged wading birds such as the great egret, white ibis and roseate spoonbill.
Birds you might see
- Whooping crane
- Great blue heron
- Reddish egret
- Piping plover
- White-tailed hawk
- Roseate spoonbill
- Black-bellied whistling duck
- Yellow-billed cuckoo
- Summer tanager
- Painted bunting
Top 10 Birding Spots was compiled by Pete Dunne who is the director of the New Jersey Audubon Society's Cape May Bird Observatory and author of "Tales of a Low Rent Birder," "Feather Quest" and "Before the Echo."
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Photos: Nesting Osprey along Osprey Trail on Honeymoon Island, Central Gulf Coast, Florida. Photo © Annette Baesel; Summer tanager. Photo © Arthur Morris/BIRDS AS ART
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