Our lodge perched right on the Gulf of Mexico. Photo: Michael O’Brien
In looking for the perfect place to hold our 2004 Upper Texas Coast Shorebird Workshop, we came across Los Patos Lodge, located just a few miles southwest of High Island and perched on the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s hard to overstate how delightful it is to be right on the coast. Sitting on the raised deck at first light, coffee in one hand, binoculars in the other, watching a river of birds move northeast along the shore is such a treat. Waterfowl, shorebirds, gulls, terns and swallows are the most common but there are always surprises: a pod of Bottlenosed Dolphins feeding in the surf; an overnight fall of buntings, orioles and tanagers in the shrubbery around the lodge; a Loggerhead Sea Turtle pulled up on the beach. The numbers and variety change from day to day but the enthralling sense of movement is a constant.
After coffee and breakfast (our lodge has a large, well-equipped kitchen) we’ll venture forth to the celebrated birding places just a few miles away: the flats at Bolivar with all their shorebirds, the rice fields and flooded prairie around Anahuac, the oak groves of High Island and Sabine Woods. We’ll usually take a picnic lunch and return to the lodge in time for canapés and drinks on the porch before dinner. Each week will be a little different depending on the birds and the leaders but each will intersect with the vast northward migration of birds and could encounter 30 or more species each of shorebirds and warblers, among many others.
We’ll begin and end each Migration Week in Houston, detouring to look at Red-cockaded Woodpeckers on our way to the lodge. Once we get to the lodge we will not travel very far afield. These weeks should be viewed as a chance to let the birds come to us and are not designed to be comprehensive. Our somewhat faster-paced tour, The Upper Texas Coast, April 14-22, 2005 led by Jon Dunn, fills that role.
Day 1: The trip begins at 6 p.m. at our hotel near Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Night in Houston.
Day 2: We’ll leave Houston early and drive about 45 miles north to Jones State Forest, a reliable place for Red-cockaded Woodpecker. This marvelous Loblolly Pine forest is known for its rich assortment of birds often including Red-headed Woodpecker and Brown-headed Nuthatch. We’ll then continue on to Liberty, where Swallow-tailed Kites have nested recently, and enjoy a picnic lunch as we scan the sky. In the afternoon we’ll make our first foray in the High Island area. Night at the Los Patos Lodge.
Days 3-7: Based at the lodge we’ll make visits to Bolivar, Anahuac, High Island, Sabine Woods and points in between. There will be no set schedule for our time at the lodge. Early mornings will often be relaxed with tea, coffee and breakfast on the deck as we monitor what’s happening along the coast and at our feeding station. Since passerine fallouts, when they occur, are primarily afternoon affairs, many mornings will be spent looking at waterbirds and shorebirds, which occur in vast numbers in the marshes, mudflats and flooded rice fields that make up this part of the Texas coast. On one morning we’ll look for Yellow Rails at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, probably on one of the refuge’s organized field trips.
We’ll hope that at least one day we witness a fall of migrants, and we’ll certainly be at High Island or some other migrant trap if one is in progress. At their best, fallouts result in a flood of birds - hundreds, even at times thousands, of flycatchers, vireos, thrushes, warblers of up to 30 species, orioles and buntings. It’s a staggering experience. Nights at the Los Patos Lodge.
Day 8: The Migration Week concludes at 10 a.m. in Houston.
Updated: 17 June 2007
Prices
- 2009 price not yet available.
Notes
This tour is limited to eight participants with one leader; 16 participants with two leaders.