Field Trip: Rio Grande Valley Rarity Chase
On this field trip we target any rare birds that are being seen in the Rio Grande Valley this winter.
Please join our Monthly Meetings via ZOOM. A link to the meeting will be sent via email just prior to the event. Check your email for the link.
For additional bird watching events, visit the Other Birding Events page.
On this field trip we target any rare birds that are being seen in the Rio Grande Valley this winter.
Join us at the South Texas Botanical Gardens in the Education Building from 7 PM to 9 PM as we meet for the last time in 2024.
Dr. Daniel Scognamillo of the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute will talk about wildcat research programs in the institute.
Join us at the South Texas Botanical Gardens in the education building at 7 PM for our January 2025 meeting.
Our guest speaker will be Anna Stalcup talking about birding in the frigid reaches of Antarctica.
Join us at the South Texas Botanical Gardens in the education building from 7 PM to 9 PM for our monthly meeting.
Local Christmas Bird Count compilers will recap the results of the 2024 Christmas Bird Counts.
Terry Little leads at the Wesley Seale Dam and La Fruta Park looking for cool birds
TPWD Personnel lead us around the Powderhorn Ranch WMA and the upcoming State Park property looking for Whooping Cranes and many more amazing birds.
More details to come.
Join us at the South Texas Botanical Gardens in the education building 7 PM to 9 PM for our monthly meeting.
A Padre Island National Seashore representative may talk about their Black Rail program.
(Black Rail photo courtesy of Kara Minter)
Susan Foster leads the group around some of the best hotspots in Rockport.
Details coming soon.
Join us at the Harte Research Institute, Room 127, for our monthly meeting at 6 PM to 8 PM.
We will host our 2024 scholarship recipients to talk about their research.
Grab a chair, some water, snacks, and binoculars and help us find amazing birds by simply sitting in special locations.
If you would like to participate, contact AOC President Liam Wolff.
Join us for our monthly meeting at the South Texas Botanical Gardens educational building from 7PM to 9 PM.
Bring a flashdrive with your best bird or wildlife photos to showcase to the club!
Join us at the Hawkwatch Platform at Hazel Bazemore Park for our June potluck. Bring a dish to share, plates and silverware, chairs, and a container for leftovers as we say farewell for the summer.
Terry Little will talk about birding in the Pacific Northwest during November’s monthly meeting.
As usual, we meet at the South Texas Botanical Gardens at 7 PM to 9PM in the education building.
The group will meet between 8:00 AM and 8:15 AM at the Mitchell Lake Audubon Center parking lot, 10750 Pleasanton Rd., San Antonio, TX 78221. There is a $5/person entrance fee in the Audubon building and National Audubon Society members receive a $2 discount. The entrance is under construction, but there will be a sign indicating where to turn in from Pleasanton Rd. (See directions below.) Once you enter the property, continue straight past the construction area and you will find the parking lot.
Birding will begin promptly at 8:15 AM and we will carpool around the property on the driving loop, which should be open, driving around the Bird Pond and back to Mitchell Lake.
Expect Vermilion Flycatcher, Bewick's Wren, Pyrrhuloxia, some shorebirds and waterfowl, and maybe even Audubon's Oriole.
DRIVING DIRECTIONS: The driving time is just over 2 hours. Take IH-37 north toward San Antonio. Take exit 133 to IH-410 West. Take exit 46 toward Moursland Rd. and turn left on Moursland Rd, which merges into Pleasanton Rd. Follow Pleasanton Rd. 2.5 miles. Mitchell Lake is on the left.
If you are running late, text or call Liam Wolff at (706) 607-0229 to join up with the group.
If there is time and interest, we can travel the ~30 miles to Government Canyon State Natural Area ($6 entrance) where we will search for Hill Country birds like Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay, Canyon Wren, and Zone-tailed Hawk. We will take a vote once we finish up at Mitchell Lake.
Sara Jose of TPWD’s Texas WILD Project, Leslie Albrecht of Oso Bay Wetlands Preserve and Education Center, and Kim Ogden of the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program will join us to talk about wildlife education programs in the Coastal Bend.
Explore birding hotspots Rose Hill Memorial Park and Blucher Park as we seek out warblers in challenging fall plumage, empids galore, and any other transient birds we can lay our eyes on.
Meet at 8 am at the main entrance to Blucher Park on Carrizo Street. (Take Kinney or Blucher to Carrizo as there is a lot construction on Comanche.) After looking for migrant songbirds at Blucher, we will move on to Rose Hill Cemetery.
This will be a half-day trip. Bring snacks, bug spray and plenty of water.
Larry Jordan will lead the first Audubon Outdoor Club field trip of the season on Saturday, Sept. 14 to search for migrating songbirds. Please contact him if you need more information at lawrencemjordan@hotmail.com or 361-443-0744.
Meet at 6PM at the Hazel Bazemore Park Hawkwatch Platform.
Bring a meal to share as well as dishes, chairs, and utensils for yourself and your party. Don’t forget spare tupperwares to take home any leftovers!
After our meal, we will have a short business meeting.
It’s picnic time! Join us at 6PM at the Hazel Bazmore Park hawkwatch platform as we gather for our June meeting. Bring a dish, a chair, and your own plates and utensils as we share a meal outdoors together during our monthly meeting.
Join us at 7pm at the South Texas Botanical Gardens & Nature Center as we gather for our monthly meeting. There will be no speaker this month. Instead, our members will bring a flashdrive with a collection of their favorite bird photos to showcase their photography.
Meet at the Carrizo St. side of Blucher Park at 8AM each Saturday and Sunday in April for a guided bird walk in search of migrating songbirds.
Meet at the Carrizo St. side of Blucher Park at 8AM each Saturday and Sunday in April for a guided bird walk in search of migrating songbirds.
Meet at the Carrizo St. side of Blucher Park at 8AM each Saturday and Sunday in April for a guided bird walk in search of migrating songbirds.
Meet at the Carrizo St. side of Blucher Park at 8AM each Saturday and Sunday in April for a guided bird walk in search of migrating songbirds.
Meet at the Carrizo St. side of Blucher Park at 8AM each Saturday and Sunday in April for a guided bird walk in search of migrating songbirds.
Meet at the Carrizo St. side of Blucher Park at 8AM each Saturday and Sunday in April for a guided bird walk in search of migrating songbirds.
Join us at 7pm at the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi as we gather for our monthly meeting. We will host our scholarship award recipients as our speakers. Meeting will be in Room 127.
Do you like birds? Do you like beer? If the answer is YES, join us at Blucher Park at 6PM on Thursday, April 11th for our Springtime Beers & Birds event in coordination with The Annex.
Meet at the Carrizo St. side of Blucher Park at 6PM where we will walk into the park in pursuit of warblers, vireos, thrushes, cuckoos, grosbeaks, and more!
Then, at 7PM regroup at The Annex bar, where you can enjoy one complimentary drink included with your ticket!
Ready to sign up? Click the link below!
Meet at the Carrizo St. side of Blucher Park at 8AM each Saturday and Sunday in April for a guided bird walk in search of migrating songbirds.
Meet at the Carrizo St. side of Blucher Park at 8AM each Saturday and Sunday in April for a guided bird walk in search of migrating songbirds.
We meet at the South Texas Botanical Gardens & Nature Center at 7PM to learn about Bachman’s Sparrow ecology in Texas from AOC member Liam Wolff.
Duval County (La Rosita and San Diego Creek)
We will meet at 6:45 a.m. at the Sunoco station at the corner of FM 1889 and Northwest Blvd. about 3 miles west of Five Points, to carpool about 45 minutes to our first stop in San Diego where we will walk the creek in search of woodland migrants and resident species.
Then we'll move on to the unincorporated town of La Rosita between San Diego and Freer. There should be Curve-billed Thrashers, Pyrrhuloxia, Black-throated Sparrows and other desert dwellers, as well as the possibility for other species that love a quiet country habitat.
The trip will end by lunch time. Minimal walking.
Bring snacks and water, and dress for the weather.
Leader: Judy Kestner, 361-701-1962. jkestner@stx.rr.com
Located a little over halfway between Corpus Christi and San Antonio, Choke Canyon State Park is an excellent locale for birding, with thousands of ducks and other waterfowl and plenty of songbirds too, such as Audubon’s Oriole. One winter, a Spotted Rail and Hook-billed Kite were present here. We may not see anything that rare, but you never know what you may find!
Meet at 8:00 AM by the restrooms on the southeast side of the park. After passing through the entrance gate ($5 fee), take a right at the first T-intersection followed immediately by another right. This road will lead you to the parking lot by the restrooms. We will bird around the freshwater pond here and the nearby trails. Afterwards, we can check the reservoir for more waterfowl.
Liam Wolff leads.
Join us at the South Texas Botanical Gardens & Nature Center at 7PM to hear a recap of the 2023 Christmas Bird Count in the Coastal Bend from Larry Jordan and others.
Larry Jordan leads the group across the Encinal Peninsula in search of waterfowl and songbird at ponds across Flour Bluff and at the AOC’s own Held-Moran Nature Sanctuary. Further details to come.
We will meet at the main entrance to the Held-Moran Sanctuary at 8:00 am. This is on Mediterranean Drive near the intersection with Samoa. We will spend some time at the sanctuary and then look at some other sites in Flour Bluff including the pond on Caribbean and the Judith Reader Pond. This will be a half-day trip, so bring water, snacks and bug spray.
If you’ve always wanted to go birding in Costa Rica — or never taken a birding trip abroad at all — this program with Audubon Outdoor Club of Corpus Christi is a great introduction to the neotropical birds of Central America. You’ll spend time in the Caribbean lowlands and the mountainous southern highlands, seeking out species typical of the differing elevations and habitats. Accompanied by an expert local birding guide, you'll have the opportunity to spot many of the country’s 900-plus species. Combine that with its accessibility and friendly people, and Costa Rica is a perfect destination for beginners and more advanced birders alike. Plus, encounter wildlife such as frogs, monkeys, bats, and sloths.
Coastal Bends Bays and Estuaries has graciously offered to host a field trip to the Nueces Delta Preserve near Portland on Jan 27th. This preserve has limited visitor access so this is an excellent opportunity to see an amazing place full of birds and other wildlife.
Further details to come!
Brent Ortego leads the group around the best hotspots in the Victoria, Texas area.
Meet at Texas Zoo at 7:30 AM. Drive to Fox Bend and walk along the river looking for Limpkin and other species of interest. Drive to restroom at exit. Drive to Duck Pond looking for Least Grebe. Drive along river to Rose Garden area for overlook of park and city. Drive to Invista Wetlands for waterbirds. Drive to Brent Ortego's house for hummingbirds.
Update: lunch will no longer be provided so please plan accordingly and bring a lunch and snacks.
Join us at the South Texas Botanical Gardens & Nature Center at 7PM to hear from Rostam Mirzadi about his Ph.D. research focused on the usage of drones as a novel method of monitoring colonial nesting waterbirds.
Join us in December for our monthly AOC meeting. We meet at 7PM at the South Texas Botanical Gardens & Nature Center. Eric Ehrlich will present about the Aplomado Falcon program at Mustang Island State Park.
We will meet at Resaca de la Palma State Park in Brownsville, Texas at 8 AM in front of the visitor center. Fortunately, most of our targets are at this one state park, so we should enjoy a great day of birding almost exclusively at this location. There is a $4 entry fee at the visitor center, which opens at 8 AM and takes cash or card. If you arrive earlier than 8 AM you can fill out a self-pay envelope with cash. We will first target the 3rd US record (1st Texas record) Gray-collared Becard at the feeders or wherever it has most recently been seen in the park. Then we will target Roadside Hawk at the dry resaca, where it often perches momentarily on stumps in the resaca. We can walk down the maintenance trail at the beginning of the park in search of the Dusky-capped Flycatcher (lawrenceii subspecies - a potential split!) and Golden-crowned Warbler. We will likely spend most of the day waiting for our targets, as they can be elusive. Fortunately, the trails are very easy and there are benches in most areas. There are restrooms and snacks available in the visitor center, but please bring water and a lunch.
Should we fail to locate Dusky-capped Flycatcher and Golden-crowned Warbler, we can try for the latter first at Hugh Ramsey Park in Harlingen (25 min from Resaca) and we can search for the former at the National Butterfly Center (1 hr west of Resaca).
Unfortunately, no spots were available on a Santa Margarita Ranch trip in Starr County for Dec. 3. Due to the incredible rarities seen there lately (Bare-throated Tiger-Heron and Mottled Owl, both 3rd US records), there is very high demand for access onto the ranch, and only two guides who can take groups onto the private property, so there is a long waitlist. Furthermore, the cost for access has increased from $25 to a whopping $160. If you would still like to visit Santa Margarita Ranch in the future, e-mail santamargaritatxranch@gmail.com.
Leader is Liam Wolff. Please text any questions to him at (706) 607-0229.
Join us at 7PM at the South Texas Botanical Gardens for our monthly meeting. Dell Little will talk to us about the Texas Century Club and some of his adventures as a Century Club birder.