Welcome March! I’m always glad when March rolls around. The threat of the mercury dipping below freezing is pretty much gone, it starts to get warm and stays that way, and the birds start doing their thing. Although we get Daylight Savings Time, March Madness, and St. Patrick’s Day in March, my favorite thing is watching the trickle of migrant birds begin to grow into a steady stream.
I said earlier that the birds start doing their thing in March but that’s not strictly true. Some of the birds started doing their thing back in January. Great Horned Owls, Barn Owls and Barred Owls are already incubating eggs by March and a few shorebirds have started too. Our colleagues down the coast found a Snowy Plover nest on January 25th and we found our first of the season oystercatcher nest on January 31st. Purple Martins starting arriving in late January too and by this time many are already setting up shop in their houses and gourds.
For many birds though, March is a transition month between wintering and migration. Geese, cranes, and waterfowl will head north leaving us for the more suitable breeding latitudes. Early songbird migrants will start arriving along the Texas coast. These include Northern Parula, Yellow-throated Warbler, and Louisiana Waterthrush. These species are usually the first to arrive on the breeding grounds farther north. When I lived in Virginia I really looked forward to hearing my first parula and waterthrush singing. It was a harbinger of spring and all that would follow. Along the coast we don’t get to hear the migrant birds sing much but you don’t have to go very far inland before you can hear many of them singing their hearts out even as they are still migrating north. I guess their hormones are already kicking in.
By the end of March many other species will be arriving too and they will usher in April which brings the most species and biggest numbers of birds migrating across the Texas coast. In late April after most of the songbirds have migrated through, the late species will arrive including Canada Warblers, flycatchers and many of the migratory shorebirds. By the middle of May, most of migration will be over. But it’s only March 1st. We have so much ahead of us in the next few months!
Another reason I like March is the wildflowers. The bluebonnets give us quite a show and my favorite, the Indian Paintbrushes, are already starting to bloom. With all the rain we’ve had this winter, I expect the wild flowers will put on quite a show this spring. There is so much happening in nature in March, you just have to get out and experience some of it!
Sue Heath is the Director of Conservation Research of the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory. The GCBO is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving the birds and their habitats along the entire Gulf Coast, and beyond into their Central and South America wintering grounds.
