Birding Center's Native Forest Helps 1,045 migrants in 2025
- choward544
- Dec 31, 2025
- 5 min read
Here at the South Padre Island Birding Nature Center & Alligator Sanctuary, we try to plant new native plant habitats around our visitor center any time we get a chance, at least twice a year, in the spring and in the fall. We only use native plants because they are the plants our local wildlife have relationships with and benefit most from. They serve as host plants for caterpillars (bird food), and flower or fruit in synch with seasonal pollinator/insect emergence and bird migrations, providing crucial energy when it is needed most. They also serve as shelter for wildlife.
As a non-profit organization, our habitat planting projects are small in scale and budget, and we do all the prep work and planting as a team of staff and caring community volunteers. We plant small patches at a time. Over the last nine years, the patchwork of planting projects has matured and has collectively created a forest surrounding our visitor center.
Meanwhile, and at a quicker rate, much of the forest habitat in the city of South Padre Island has been lost to residential and commercial development. This is not surprising, on account of the island’s popularity and national, even international, appeal.
South Padre Island has historically been an important rest stop for migratory birds. Due to habitat diminishing throughout the city, the habitats at the birding center and the convention center have become increasingly important. I like to tell visitors to the birding center that our habitats are like the Buc-ee’s for birds. Most of the migratory birds that find our gardens have been flying hundreds of miles before they arrive, some of them over the open Gulf! They are literally flying in on an empty tank. Our job at the center is to make sure that they have everything they need to re-energize. A good place to hide and rest, plenty of bugs, berries, and seeds to eat (a little bit for every taste), and some water to drink. Most migrants will spend two to five days on site re-energizing before continuing their migration. For most, South Padre Island is the halfway point on their journeys.
This year, I decided to track the number and species of passerines (perching birds) that use our native gardens surrounding the visitor center and parking lot to gauge the beneficial impact our gardens have. The survey area measured 4.37 acres, with about 1.32 acres being the parking lot and visitor center. The total natural area surveyed is just over 3 acres. This study excluded all birds along our wetlands and birds other than passerines: waders, shorebirds, waterfowl, etc. I kept weekly totals throughout the spring and fall migrations. Fortunately, migration comes in waves, making it easier not to double-count migrants as they pass with an ebb and flow. Not all sightings for the count were done by me. I also relied on the observations of my trustworthy birding friends, especially on my days off or when I was working off-site.
During the spring migration (mid-March to mid-May), I tallied 481 bright and colorful breeding-plumage draped individual birds of 88 species. This included a very rare Flame-colored Tanager that attracted birders from across the state! The Tanager spent five days in our gardens gorging on ripe mulberries from our mulberry trees, which fruit only in the springtime. Flame-colored Tanager is a rare vagrant from Mexico, with the closest part of its range to us being the mountain canyons of the Sierra Madre Oriental in Mexico. This was the first time this species was recorded on our site.
Other special birds of the spring migration included this stunning Varied Bunting from early April.
And 28 warbler species!
Photos by: Mary Volz (in order: Bay-breasted Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, American Redstart
The fall migration (mid-July to December) is prolonged, and I tallied 564 birds of 100 species. The highlight of the fall migration was the RGV’s second record Flammulated Owl, that I was thrilled to have found myself on October 20th, which was a day-off for me! I remember that I felt a bit antsy because I had a bit too much coffee at home that morning, so I decided to go to the birding center to do a quick lap around the gardens when suddenly I flushed a small brown bird from the underbrush of the wild and unkept southeast corner of the gardens. My first thought was that I flushed a nightjar, but right when I locked in on it with my binoculars it suddenly turned its head 180 degrees and looked at me with its big, round, pitch-black eyes. I felt a chill go down my spine when I realized that I was looking at a Flammulated Owl and that it was looking right back at me! I had only ever heard one before once when I was camping next to the headwaters of the Rio Grande River in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. I ended up staying at the center the whole rest of the day because birding friends from across the RGV came to go get a look at it! The little owl fell asleep right on the branch that I landed on when I flushed it and everyone that came to see it enjoyed amazing views of a usually extremely hard to see species! This tiny migratory owl is rare anywhere on the gulf coast, but if the species is migratory, there is a good chance that one day stop in for a rest on South Padre Island. The bird was a one-day wonder, as it was not found again the following day.
The other birder favorites of the fall migration were stunning males Golden-winged Warbler (a threatened species) and Black-throated Blue Warbler, a Sage Thrasher, and a Brown Creeper! All of which stayed for three to five days.
The Brown Creeper was every bit of a creep! Several birders that came to look for it reported the same experience. They would look for it for about an hour all over the gardens with no luck, get tired, sit down for a rest at one or the park benches, when suddenly the Brown Creeper would come creeping up the tree trunk right next to them! You don’t creep on the Creeper, the Creeper creeps on you!
The total number of passerines tallied in our native gardens this year 1,045 individuals of 121 species!! That’s close to half of the North American breeding passerine species! The individual bird count is what pleased me the most. To know that our native gardens helped that many birds in a year is encouraging and inspires us to keep with our conservation mission. Our forest is still quite young. I can only imagine how incredible it can become if we take care of it and keep expanding it into the future. It can be something unique, unlike any other park along the Texas coast! More birds also mean more birders! Who come from far and wide to enjoy the spectacle of migration on South Padre Island and, in turn, boost our economy! More birds also mean a happier life and community.
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