02 Mar Birds Everywhere!

There’s a lot to be excited about at Travis Audubon!  Spring is an excellent time for birds in Central Texas.  Lots of migrating birds that normally live in other parts of the country are passing through now, and that (combined with the lovely weather we’ve been having!) is a great excuse to get outside.

National Audubon’s Great Backyard Bird Count just ended, and Texas ranked at the top of the list for number of bird species reported.  If that’s not enough to get you excited about all the great local birds, the Celebrate Urban Birds festival is coming up this weekend.  It looks like it’s going to be a great event; everyone should stop by!

Recently we’ve been trying to reach out to amateur birders, back yard birders, and people (like me!) who don’t know very much about birds at all.  I’ve tried to compile a basic list of resources for people who are intrigued about all these migrating birds flying through our town, and want to learn more.

Every month Travis Audubon and Jim Spencer from KXAN put out the KXAN birdcast, which lists the birds which you can expect to see in the coming month.  It’s a helpful guide to what you might see outside your kitchen window, and is written in a way that is easy for non-birders to understand.

There are some resources at the National Audubon site, Birding basics and Bird feeding basics, that are great for finding out basic information.  We’ll hopefully be adding some Central-Texas-specific beginning birding information to our new website. Keep an eye out!

 (Photograph of Male Painted Bunting by Jim DeVries)