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Photo by Jack Rogers

Photo by Jack Rogers

Here’s the quarterly update to the “Big as Texas eBird Counties” spreadsheet for for Fall 2025. This update reflects every species appearing on eBird county checklists, compared against the TOS Handbook of Texas Birds 2nd Edition range maps.

Highlights and notes from late September to early December

This spreadsheet has been changed to match the latest updates to the eBird list. Here are the changes
  1. Whimbrel was split into Hudsonian Whimbrel and Eurasian Whimbrel. 
  2. Elegant Trogon was split resulting in the name changed to Coppery-tailed Trogon.
  3. Warbling Vireo was split into Eastern Warbling Vireo and Western Warbling Vireo
  4. Yellow Warbler was split into Northern Yellow Warbler and Mangrove Yellow Warbler
Other species added to the Texas list this quarter: 

House Crow (Exotic: provisional)

Texas Ornithology Society (TOS) Review Species added to counties for the quarter.
  1. Red-footed Booby: Aransas – checklist
  2. Red-footed Booby: Cameron – checklist
  3. Red-footed Booby: Harris – checklist
  4. Golden-crowned Sparrow: (2008) Harris – checklist
  5. Manx Shearwater: Kenedy – checklist
  6. White-tailed Tropicbird: Kenedy – checklist
  7. Red-footed Booby: Kenedy – checklist
  8. Black-headed Gull: Potter – checklist
  9. Snail Kite: Webb – (2024) checklist
  10. Brown Jay: Webb – (1984) checklist
  11. Double-striped Thick-knee: Wilson – checklist
Current state of Counties with Warbling Vireo (Eastern/Western) records (12/06/25)
  1. Counties remaining undifferentiated: Andrews, Briscoe, Castro, Childress, Coke, Crockett, Dallam, Deaf Smith, Ector, Edwards, Floyd, Glasscock, Hale, Hall, Hockley, Hutchinson, Lamb, Loving, Lynn, Mitchell, Moore, Motley, Potter, Reagan, Roberts, Sterling, Stonewall, Terry, Yoakum.
  2. Counties with both Eastern and Western in eBird: Cameron, Crosby, Dickens, Garza, Lubbock, Midland, Parmer, Presidio, Travis
  3. Map showing current distribution (select the “Eastern & Western Warbling Vireo” layer): https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1LSNh8cY6O9BPq8w5UmEZJoY-wbhNIs2K&ll=30.797486574306802%2C-101.824088671875&z=7
  • Mangrove Yellow Warbler added to Cameron, Nueces & Willacy counties.

“Way out of range” county records:

  1. Castro: Black Phoebe – https://ebird.org/checklist/S272456896
  2. Cochran:
  3. Comal:
  4. Donley: American Golden Plover – https://ebird.org/checklist/S276684080
  5. Ector: Magnolia Warbler – https://ebird.org/checklist/S272303653
  6. El Paso:
  7. Fort Bend: Hammond’s Flycatcher – https://ebird.org/checklist/S282726336
  8. Hidalgo: Cassin’s Kingbird – https://ebird.org/checklist/S275779576
  9. Johnson: Cassin’s Vireo – https://ebird.org/checklist/S272160903
  10. Kinney: Western Flycatcher – https://ebird.org/checklist/S274498745
  11. La Salle: Cassin’s Kingbird – https://ebird.org/checklist/S281922822
  12. Leon: Broad-tailed Hummingbird – https://ebird.org/checklist/S284660751
  13. Lubbock: Swallow-tailed Kite – https://ebird.org/checklist/S267719056
  14. Maverick: Allen’s Hummingbird – https://ebird.org/checklist/S272940268
  15. Oldham: Black Phoebe – https://ebird.org/checklist/S277263533
  16. Reeves: Eastern Towhee – (May) https://ebird.org/checklist/S272842165
  17. Wheeler: Sage Thrasher – https://ebird.org/checklist/S280489739
  18. Yoakum: Baltimore Oriole – https://ebird.org/checklist/S270971885
Continuous work in obscure counties:
  • Crane: 4 species: (Anthony Hewetson, Sheri Anderson)
  • Winkler: 4 species (Anthony Hewetson, Sheri Anderson)
Interesting checklist: Yellow Rail – Dallas – https://ebird.org/checklist/S282038791
Limpkin this quarter was added to Burnet Co.
Species needed for just one county:
  1. Mallard: Medina
  2. Sharp-shinned Hawk: Loving
  3. Western Kingbird: Shelby
  4. Cedar Waxwing: Loving
  5. American Pipit: Hall
  6. Lark Sparrow: Newton
  7. Vesper Sparrow: Sabine
  8. Orchard Oriole: Castro
  9. Nashville Warbler: Moore
  10. Wilson’s Warbler: Franklin
For the quarter (last 3 months) eBirders added 115 total county ticks starting at 74250 & ending at 74,365.
Safe county birding!

I keep track of County Big Days. So if your random winter birding day or Christmas Bird Count day is pretty big, maybe it will make it on the list on our Texas Century Club County Big Days page. Again I remind those of you who’d like, there’s a way to find your top county big days by downloading your data from eBird and upload it to Colton Robbins’ Birding Analytics browser app here: https://birdinganalytics.netlify.app/ It will spit out all your county top 3 big days, which you can compare to our County Big Day list at the Texas Century Club site, to see if it makes any of the Counties’ top 10.

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