South Texas Birding: Coastal Prairie and Thornscrub

After moving down the Rio Grande River toward the Gulf of Mexico, we left the woodlands behind us and ventured out onto the coastal prairie of South Texas.  

Here, we spent an incredibly windy April morning birding along Old Port Isabel Road, at Palo Alto National Battlefield, and, briefly, Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. 

Read about the South Texas "Specialty Birds" we saw in the Lower Rio Grande Valley here!

The beautiful flowers of a prickly pear cactus


In the open country of the coastal prairies, we spotted Scissor-tailed Flycatchers hanging out on barbed wire fences and powerlines.  This gorgeous flycatcher, with its long, elegant tail feathers and salmon pink underwings, was one of my very favorite species of the entire trip!  A bird of the central prairies, the summer breeding range of the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher extends across most of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as the western portions of Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana.  

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher


Scissor-tailed Flycatcher


Scissor-tailed Flycatcher


Another bird of the central prairies and desert southwest, Cassin's Sparrows are more frequently heard than seen.  But, after picking out their song above the rising wind and spending a few minutes searching the scrubby vegetation around an abandoned ranch, we were able to find several of these little brown birds, perched on yuccas and other thorny shrubs.  One Cassin's Sparrow is just barely visible in the photo below!

Cassin's Sparrow


One very cool raptor we encountered for the first time on our visit to South Texas was the Crested Caracara.  Sometimes called the "Mexican Eagle," the Crested Caracara is actually a member of the falcon family, though it behaves more like a vulture and looks like a hawk!  The range of the Crested Caracara is large, and extends into Central and South America, but in the U.S., it is only found in Texas and small parts of Arizona and Florida.  

Distant Caracara pair near dusk on the prairie


Male Crested Caracara


Female Crested Caracara on a nest


Another notable falcon is a resident of the prairies and arid grasslands of South Texas once again, thanks entirely to the efforts of decades of work by conservationists.  By the 1930's, the striking little Aplomado Falcon had been extirpated from the United States.  Beginning in the 1980's, captive-bred individuals of this species were released in South Texas and are now breeding successfully there in the wild. Though the range of the Aplomado Falcon extends all the way south to Tierre del Feugo, at the southern tip of Argentina, the northern populations, including those in Texas, are still listed as endangered. 

On an incredibly windy evening, we were fortunate enough to spot this distant Aplomado Falcon perched atop an enormous cell tower, just off the highway on the way out to South Padre Island.  I wish I had been able to get better photos of this special bird, but given the limited time we had in its range, I considered just getting a look at one a success!

Aplomado Falcon


Next in the category of "Least Impressive Bird Photos" is this very distant White-tailed Hawk, pictured below as a mere speck on a telephone pole.  Thankfully, our real-life looks at this species were better than my photos, and we spotted a couple of these distinctly patterned raptors while out in the open spaces of the South Texas coastal prairies.  I sort of assumed this species would be on every telephone pole across the region, but I was sorely mistaken; they're actually not all that common, and the few times I saw them were special!

Super-distant White-tailed Hawk


A few more species of the South Texas prairies that have a wider range outside the state include the Eastern Meadowlark, Curve-billed Thrasher and Lark Sparrow, all pictured below.  Naturally, these familiar species were the ones that allowed closer approach, enabling me to get photos!

Eastern Meadowlark


Curve-billed Thrasher


Lark Sparrow


A very, very windy morning at Palo Alto National Battlefield


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