SABINE WOODS IS AN IMPORTANT REST STOP on the Texas/Louisiana border for birds migrating to and from Central America, 27 acres of live oaks gnalred by hurricanes. Sabine is privately owned and managed by the Texas Ornithological Society but the trails were ominously silent on this foggy Wednesday except for the whining of a gazillion blood-thirsty mosquitoes.
Live Oak
Port Arthur Oil Refinery
We are staying in a tidy cottage in Groves, courtesy of AirBnB. It’s showing its age but ticks all the boxes—it even has a nursery! The 30-minute drive to Sabine Woods goes past the worst of Port Arthur including several oil refineries—not what one expects near world-class birding.
Indigo Bunting
Summer Tanager
Black and White Warbler
Tennessee Warbler
It was only 50° when we returned Thursday and there were fewer mossies. We counted 30 total species including a summer tanager, Carolina chickadee and an indigo bunting—and warblers, of course, eight of them. But we were hoping for something more like our first visit back in 2011 when we saw hundreds of birds including more than a twenty kinds of warblers!
BirdCast Radar
Actually we should be proud of ourselves—the BirdCast bird migration radar picture for the morning was pretty bleak. The forecast for the weekend looks more promising. I wonder what Roger Tory Peterson and James Audubon would have thought of the technology.
