Trips and Photos

This is no longer an active web page since it requires frequent maintenance.  

I recommend signing onto the LEAS listserv to keep up with regular trip postings.  To do this, send a blank e-mail to LEAS-SUBSCRIBE@milepost1.com 

Please visit our Bird Alert 2006 page for rare bird sightings and the 
Directions page for location information.

Lubbock's Birding Potential:  Special Note
by Anthony Hewetson at terrverts(at)yahoo.com

This is a message to the folks in other parts of Texas who haven't had the opportunity to bird the Lubbock area ... and to recent arrivals who are afraid they've landed in a bird-free zone.

When I first moved to Lubbock, most of the birder's I know teased me for moving to such a 'worthless part of the state for birding' and I was, to a certain extent, a wee bit nervous.

I had nothing to worry about!  As evidence of this, a few statistics from my 2001 birding efforts in the area covered by the Llano Estacado Audubon chapter (Bailey, Lamb, Hale, Floyd, Motley, Cochran, Hockley, Lubbock, Crosby, Dickens, Yoakum, Terry, Lynn, Garza, and Kent counties -- a 120 x 190 mile slice of heaven, as far as this birder is concerned) are provided herewith.

In 2001 I took 142 birding trips, of varying duration, throughout the region, logging 493 hours of everything from scanning playas to crawling through brush to tripping along creeks dripping with migrants.  During this time I listed 304 SPECIES -- not bad for a "worthless" area and better than I managed most years in the entire state of Oregon or the entire state of Washington while I was living in the Pacific Northwest.

I won't go into too much detail, but: 10 waders, 25 waterfowl, 26 raptors, 28 shorebirds, 9 gulls/ terns, 7 hummingbirds, 10 woodpeckers, 17 flycatchers, 7 vireos, 7 swallows, 8 wrens, 27 warblers, 29 sparrows, and 11 icterids.  Our area is far from high and dry as far as birds are concerned!

Birds I added, in 2001, to my cumulative list for the area also tell an interesting tale about the possibilities in our region: Red-throated Loon, Fulvous Whistling Duck, White-tailed Kite, American Golden Plovers, Sanderling, Pomarine Jaeger, Sabine's Gull, Least Tern, Northern Saw-whet Owl, Anna's Hummingbirds,  Acorn Woodpecker, Lewis' Woodpecker, Virginia's Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, Canada Warbler, and Cassin's Finches.

Lubbock and the surrounding counties provide a pretty good ride for the active birdwatcher; a much better ride than a lot of folks think.  With deep water reservoirs and seasonal flooding of myriad playas our area is not the dry wasteland it is often perceived to be.  With habitats ranging from open grassland to shrubby hillsides to well-forested riparian zones, it is not the featureless prairie/agriculture zone it is often perceived to be. 

With an ideal position to get the best of the west and a feast from the east during migration, winter and summer wanderers during most years, and a decent array of regular residents, I'd put our fifteen counties with any other fifteen counties in the United States. 

In short, the area rocks!  If a birder's path should ever lead to Lubbock they needn't hang up their binoculars.  They might just end up having more fun than they ever thought possible in the high and dry wasteland of the southern Panhandle.  I've certainly learned my lesson about approaching a region with an open mind.

Great Birding!

Updated 19 July 2006 .