Wings tour Texas Upper coast led by Jon Feenstra

Now I remember, I did read this part.

http://wingsbirds.com/tours/texas-upper-coast/

Texas: The Upper Coast

Thursday 12 April to Thursday 19 April 2018

with Jon Feenstra as leader

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• Itinerary
• Bird List
• Narrative
• Tour Information

 

There may be no better birdwatching in North America than one encounters on the northwestern shores of the Gulf of Mexico in spring. Between mid-March and mid-May, masses of waterbirds and passerines wing north from their wintering grounds and a significant percentage of them pass through this corridor. The waterbirds are a constant as large numbers of herons and spoonbills, shorebirds of 30 or more species and a profusion of gulls and terns fill the marshes.
Less predictable but perhaps even more spectacular are the countless thousands of migrant thrushes, vireos, warblers and buntings that reach the coast after completing their lengthy trans-Gulf of Mexico migration. If the weather is fair, most of these birds pass on and disperse among the more suitable forests in the interior but if they encounter rain or strong north winds before or as they reach the coast, large numbers may drop into the first isolated clumps of vegetation. The phenomenon constitutes one of the great visible migration spectacles in North America and if one occurs during our stay, we’ll alter plans if necessary to bear witness.
The migrants alone would draw birdwatchers to this area, but amazingly there’s more: nearby pine woods and cypress swamps are home to some of North America’s most sought-after breeding birds. Texas and Louisiana in April are simply full of birds.

Day 1: The tour begins this evening with a 6 pm meeting at our hotel near George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston.

Jon is a terrific leader. My second trip with him. He loves to teach, so I always learn a lot. He’s a top expert on the birds, so we also see and hear a lot. On this trip, Jon had to cope with the weather. A huge storm hit the general area on our 2nd or 3d day. He watched the weather news carefully and adjusted our plans so we made the most out of a bad weather situation.
Dixie Sommers, June 2016.

Days 2-6:  We’ll leave the morning of Day 2 for Winnie, our base for explorations of the Upper Texas and Louisiana coasts. These days will be varied and, we hope, spectacular. The central focus will be Sabine Woods and High Island, celebrated landbird migrant traps but ones that require special weather to produce a major fall of birds. If we’re lucky, cuckoos, thrushes, vireos, warblers of 25 or more species, tanagers, buntings, and orioles will fill these small woods and provide a memorable birdwatching experience.
As High Island and Sabine Woods tend to have more migrants in the afternoon, we’ll spend several mornings looking at waterbirds. The heronry at nearby Smith Oaks offers intimate looks at nesting Roseate Spoonbill, Snowy and Great Egrets; mudflats and beaches can hold thousands of herons, gulls, terns, and shorebirds of up to 20 species including Piping and Wilson’s Plovers, often American Oystercatcher, and sometimes thousands of brilliant American Avocets. Flooded rice fields near Winnie can host large numbers of shorebirds, including American Golden-Plover and Pectoral Sandpiper, often joined by Buff-breasted Sandpipers and sometimes White-rumped Sandpiper and Hudsonian Godwit. The wonderful marshes at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge are recovering from the ravages of Hurricane Ike and are home to Least Bittern, White-faced Ibis, Clapper and King Rails, Purple Gallinule, Seaside, Nelson’s Sharp-tailed, and sometimes Le Conte’s Sparrows, and, if conditions are right, Yellow and just possibly Black Rail.
On one day we’ll visit Cameron Parish in southwestern Louisiana. As we travel east to Johnson’s Bayou and a normally uncrowded Baton Rouge Audubon Society woodlot that captures migrants in the same way as High Island and Sabine Woods, we’ll travel through miles of unbroken fresh water marsh filled with King Rails, often with downy black chicks.
Sometime during out stay in Winnie, we’ll travel north to Jasper, Texas and the Angelina National Forest for a night. We’ll keep our rooms in Winnie so we’ll need only an overnight bag.  Bachman’s Sparrows live here and we’ll search for them at dawn when their lovely song makes them easier to find. A few Red-cockaded Woodpeckers occur here and we’ll look for them and their fellow North American endemic Brown-headed Nuthatch.  Nearby at Boykin Springs, Louisiana Waterthrush breeds in some years and Sandy Creek Park is home to Red-headed Woodpecker, Yellow-throated and White-eyed Vireos, Northern Parula, and Yellow-throated, Prothonotary, Swainson’s, Worm-eating and Kentucky Warblers among others. We’ll look as well for breeding Prairie Warblers (a local breeder in east Texas) and watch the skies for Mississippi and sometimes even Swallow-tailed Kites and Broad-winged and Red-shouldered Hawks. In mid-afternoon, we’ll return to Winnie. Nights: Four in Winnie and one in Jasper.
Day 7:  After a final full day in the field on the Upper Texas Coast, we’ll return to Houston. Night in Houston.
Day 8:  The tour concludes this morning in Houston.
Note: There will be an optional Day 8 early morning in Jones State Forest, a short distance north of Houston Intercontinental Airport. Red-cockaded Woodpeckers have for years been almost assured here and this will be our back-up in case we missed them in the Angelina National Forest.  Red-headed Woodpeckers are usually present here along with a variety of woodland species.  We’ve even encountered territorial Sharp-shinned Hawks on multiple occasions