Texas Panhandle
Bird Nerd

After a long winter and an extremely slow start, spring migration is finally bustling at Palo Duro Canyon State Park. While the traditional birding guides calculate that flycatchers and warblers will begin showing up in mid-March, few reports of any interesting migrants in 2022 occurred before mid-April. But at Palo Duro Canyon, it was worth the wait. The big news for local birders this spring is that a pair of Vermilion Flycatchers has decided to build a nest in Hackberry Ca

A herd of fascinating non-native North African barbary sheep roam the canyon, but they are seldom seen in the state park. The sheep (who, per their DNA, are really more closely related to wild goats) are well-adapted to arid, rugged landscapes like Palo Duro Canyon. The story is that they were introduced to Texas in the 1940's by ex-GI's who had served in North Africa in WWII and realized the aoudad's potential as a game animal in our state. Like most introductions of non-nat

The Texas Panhandle is just a blank canvas on which God paints a new masterpiece every day. Growing up in Arlington, Texas, I thought beauty meant the cool grey shade of a post oak tree, the relentless green of St. Augustine grass, the mossy blue of the Brazos River at Granbury where I attended summer camp, and the bright fuschia of the ubiquitous crepe myrtle trees lining every road in the area. But the Texas Panhandle, where I have lived since 1987, features more earthy ton

The bird blind at Palo Duro Canyon State Park yields a treasure trove of interesting local birds.

Someone needed to tell this bird it was the middle of November and he wasn't supposed to be here. I was birding at Palo Duro Canyon State Park early in the morning of Saturday, November 16, 2019. I spotted this little bird along the Comanche Trail, which runs behind Hackberry Campground along the creek and is one of the best birding trails in the park. Typical for a warbler, this bird was incredibly difficult to photograph at all, much less photograph well, because warblers a