Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Spring migration: A trip to the coast.

Ya, but that was an easy one Birdwatching 101.

Actually though the most whippoorwills I have heard at one time was five, just outside of College Station TX, just as darkness fell one evening in early May. Clearly a flight of some sort had come in the night before and these birds were about to pick up and move on.

Anyhoo, some bling birds, all of which are edge/open woodland species and all of which are likely more common now than they were before settlement of the Continent.

Doesn't matter what they look like, to birders on the Texas coast in spring they generally draw yawns on account of being so common.

The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, like Mickey Coleman just had at his feeder....



The Baltimore Oriole. Actually, if you go to the Tropics, you realize that "our" familiar migratory birds are just tropical birds on loan for the breeding season. Most of the birds in this thread spend more time down there than they do up here, and since we send about three billion of 'em south every fall it ain't surprising that these birds are also integral and important parts of tropical ecosystems dwon there.

There's a tree in Central America for example, that is pollinated largely by Baltimore Orioles, the petals being that exact same shade of yellow/orange. But in summer you can find 'em all over the Eastern and Central United States.



Another bling bird, the Indigo Bunting, common as dirt in summer across two thirds of the Continent. They sing all summer too on account of they raise two or three broods each year, present in hordes on the Texas coast in spring....



And finally, the ultimate bling bird that always blows newbies away. And testament to the perversities of human nature that veteran birders down here merely yawn when one of these show up, even though they must be among the most the spectacular of God's creations. That they can be found all over two thirds of Texas in summer is the cause of the ennui.

The Painted Bunting, like the Indigo adult males anly attaining full bling at two years of age, which only about 25% of males ever survive to see.



Birdwatcher