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

Open Big as Texas Spreadsheet ↗

Highlights and notes from the quarter from March to late May.

  • Added to the Texas list this quarter.
    1. Amur Stonechat – checklist
    2. Yellow-headed Caracara – checklist moved from provisional
  • Review Species added to counties for the quarter.
    1. Golden-crowned Sparrow: Burnet – checklist (January)
    2. Amur Stonechat: Chambers – checklist (December 2024)
    3. Eskimo Curlew: Cooke – checklist (March 1884)
    4. Yellow-headed Caracara: Galveston – checklist (December 2024) Shows up a provisional on the Galveston Co. list, but not on the Texas list. It is on the TBRC official list as of 3/25/25
    5. Ruff: Grayson – checklist
    6. Costa’s Hummingbird: Guadalupe – checklist (February)
    7. Yellow-headed Caracara: Harris – checklist (June 2024) Not provisional (see Galveston Co above)
    8. Evening Grosbeak: Houston – checklist (January 1973) Count of 26
    9. Short-tailed Hawk: Kendall – checklist
    10. Eskimo Curlew: Kendall – checklist (March 1880)
    11. Short-tailed Hawk: Kinney – checklist
    12. Evening Grosbeak: Polk – checklist (February 1978)
    13. Short-tailed Hawk: Val Verde – checklist
  • “Way out of range” county records:
    1. Atascosa: Western Tanager – checklist
    2. Brewster: Rose-throated Becard – checklist
    3. Brooks: Western Flycatcher – checklist
    4. Burnet: Royal Tern – checklist
    5. Childress: Sage Thrasher – checklist
    6. Clay: Sage Thrasher – checklist
    7. Coleman: Broad-winged Hawk – checklist
    8. Crosby: Ovenbird – checklist
    9. Crosby: Cassin’s Vireo – checklist
    10. Denton: Red-necked Phalarope – checklist
    11. Franklin: Say’s Phoebe – checklist
    12. Gregg: Bullock’s Oriole – checklist (not any documentation other than “female”)
    13. Hutchinson: Veery – checklist
    14. Jeff Davis: Bobolink – checklist
    15. Jefferson: Scott’s Oriole – checklist
    16. Johnson: Cape May Warbler – checklist
    17. Limestone: Cape May Warbler – checklist
    18. Llano: Lesser Black-backed Gull – checklist
    19. Lubbock: Allen’s Hummingbird – checklist (January)
    20. Midland: Gray Hawk – checklist
    21. MIlls: Philadelphia Vireo – checklist
    22. Morris: Lesser Goldfinch – checklist
    23. Motley: Tricolored Heron – checklist
    24. Nacogdoches: Groove-billed Ani – checklist (September 1980)
    25. Nacogdoches: Royal Tern – checklist (September 2008)
    26. Orange: Western Tanager – checklist
    27. Pecos: White Ibis – checklist
    28. Rains: Cape May Warbler – checklist
    29. Rusk: Great Kiskadee – checklist
    30. Sabine: Black-throated Gray Warbler – checklist
    31. Sabine: Red-necked Phalarope – checklist (September 1972)
    32. Scurry: American Golden-Plover – checklist
    33. Stephens: Zone-tailed Hawk – checklist
    34. Travis: Western Wood-Pewee – checklist
    35. Travis: Grace’s Warbler – checklist
    36. Val Verde: Bay-breasted Warbler – checklist
    37. Wharton: Black-headed Grosbeak – checklist
    38. Wood: Black-throated Blue Warbler – checklist
    39. Zavala: Scarlet Tanager – checklist (new birder, new to area, no notes, not flagged by filter?, not a Vermilion Flycatcher?)
  • Continuous work in obscure counties:
    1. Motley: 6 species (5 by Mark Peterson)
    2. Nacogdoches: 11 historical records from David Wolf
    3. Sabine: 9 historical records added from David Wolf
  • Limpkin this quarter was added to 0 counties
  • Species needed for just one county:
    1. Mallard: Medina
    2. Western Kingbird: Shelby
    3. Cedar Waxwing: Loving
    4. American Pipit: Hall
    5. Lark Sparrow: Newton
    6. Vesper Sparrow: Sabine
    7. Orchard Oriole: Castro
    8. Nashville Warbler: Moore
    9. Wilson’s Warbler: Franklin
  • Archer County: 6 species added; 3 by Bryan Box.
  • Bosque: 5 species added, 4 shorebird species
  • Angelina and Archer Counties reached the 300 species mark.
  • Interesting checklistvia Japanese visitor in Sabine Co.
  • For the quarter (last 3 months) eBirders added 267 total county ticks starting at 73878 & ending at 74145.

Safe county birding!

I keep track of Big Days. So if your random summer birding day is pretty big, Yeah I know summer in Texas, right? Well 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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