Here’s the quarterly update to the “Big as Texas eBird Counties” spreadsheet for Spring 2026
Highlights and notes from late March to early June 2026
There were no new species added to the Texas list this quarter.
Texas Ornithology Society (TOS) Review Species added to counties for the quarter.
- Brant: Aransas (Historical 1976) – checklist
- Amure Stonechat: Bell (November 2025) – checklist
- Yellow Grosbeak: Brewster – checklist
- Long-tailed Jaeger: Calhoun (November 2025) – checklist
- Short-tailed Hawk: Comal – checklist
- Olive Warbler: Culberson – checklist
- Pacific Wren: Culberson (November 2025) – checklist
- Fork-tailed Flycatcher: Grayson – checklist
- Snail Kite: Hidalgo – checklist
- Ruff: Hidalgo – checklist
- Short-tailed Hawk: Kerr – checklist
- Evening Grosbeak: Kerr (Historical 1994) – checklist
- Ruff: Matagorda – checklist
“Way out of range” county records:
- Anderson: Lesser Black-backed Gull (no notes – apparently not considered rare by eBird) – checklist
- Baylor: Cassin’s Kingbird – checklist
- Bell: Brown Booby – checklist
- Briscoe:
- Crosby:
- Dallas: Couch’s Kingbird – checklist
- Dickens: Crested Caracara – checklist
- Garza: Ruddy Turnstone – checklist
- Hays: Royal Turn – checklist
- Hemphill: Hudsonian Godwit – checklist
- Henderson: Black-throated Gray Warbler – checklist
- Hood: Western Tanager – checklist
- Hopkins: Lazuli Bunting – checklist
- Houston: Western Tanager (no ID notes) – checklist
- Kerr: Black Skimmer – checklist
- Live Oak: Black-headed Grosbeak – checklist
- Maverick: Monk Parakeet – checklist
- Moore:
- Potter: Hudsonian Godwit – checklist
- Presidio: Roseate Spoonbill – checklist
- Runnels: Western Tanager – checklist
- Shelby: Black-headed Grosbeak (no photos yet) – checklist
- Stonewall: Zone-tailed Hawk – checklist
- Taylor: Cerulean Warbler – checklist
- Terry: Mexican Duck – checklist
- Tom Green: Gull-billed Tern – checklist
- Uvalde: Western Flycatcher – checklist
- Walker: Lesser Goldfinch – checklist
- Young: Brewer’s Sparrow – checklist
Continuous work in obscure counties:
- Maverick: Multiple observers – (9 sp) – eBird county birdlist
- Frio: Multiple observers – (6 sp) – eBird county birdlist
- Lavaca: Clayton Leopold (6 sp) – eBird county birdlist
- Brown: Jacob Skiles – (5 sp) eBird county birdlist
- Newton: Wyatt Egelhoff (5 sp) – eBird county birdlist
- Cherokee: Multiple observers – (4 sp) – eBird county birdlist
- Comal: Multiple observers – (4 sp) – eBird county birdlist
Prothonotary Warbler was added to (8) counties: Archer, Briscoe, Brown, Foard, Frio, Kerr, Kimble, Webb
Checkout all that was added and removed from the county list during the post Spring 2026 audit.
Limpkin, this quarter, was added to no counties.
Current state of Counties with Warbling Vireo (Eastern/Western) records (03/04/26)
- 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, Stonewall, Terry, Yoakum.
- Counties with both Eastern and Western in eBird: Cameron, Crosby, Dickens, Garza, Lubbock, Midland, Parmer, Presidio, Tom Green, Travis
Species still needed for just one county:
- Mallard: Medina
- Mississippi Kite: Loving
- Western Kingbird: Shelby
- Cedar Waxwing: Loving
- American Pipit: Hall
- Lark Sparrow: Newton
- Vesper Sparrow: Sabine
- Orchard Oriole: Castro
- Nashville Warbler: Moore
- Wilson’s Warbler: Franklin
For the quarter (last 3 months) eBirders added 203 total county ticks starting at 74,471 & ending at 74,674. (For comparison the June 2025 report had 267 additions.)
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.
