Hundreds of thousands of hummingbirds, swallows, warblers and other migratory birds will travel through Austin this weekend.
While spring migration runs from early March through the end of May, next week marks the peak of the season.
“We’re really in the smack-dab heart of it right now,” said Jennifer Bristol, a bird expert and author of two books on Central Texas birding.
A strong southerly wind is moving through Austin and will stick around until at least the middle of next week, according to the National Weather Service. Bristol said that tailwind plays a major role in helping the birds on their journey north.
Forecasts from Birdcast, a migration tool created by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, predict Saturday and Sunday will be extremely busy nights for bird migration. Thursday night, 642,000 birds traveled through Travis County.
Birdcast gets data through eBird — an app bird nerds use to track sightings — as well as signals from tagged birds that ping off radio towers as they fly by. Bristol said decades of data collection have made Birdcast a trusty prediction model.
Unfortunately, many of the birds passing through Austin will die.
Most birds migrate at night, and light pollution can disorient them and often leads to deadly building collisions. Audubon Texas estimates a billion birds die each year from crashing into buildings.
But turning off or dimming your lights between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. can help. Window decals can also help prevent collisions by making glass more visible to birds.
If you’re hoping to spot some migratory birds, Bristol has tips for that, too.
Instead of hanging a bird feeder, Bristol recommends getting native plants that attract insects — the primary food source for migratory birds — and not using pesticides that kill the bugs birds need to eat.
“Bird feed is great in the winter to help our aviation friends, but at this time of year, during migration, they are mostly interested in insects,” she said.
If you can't bring the birds to you, Bristol says walking to a live oak or pecan tree is a solid bet for migratory bird sightings.
“The live oaks are a grocery store tree, we’ll call them the H-E-B of the tree world,” she said. “Pecans are also great for the bird because they support a lot of insects.”
Overall, Bristol has simple advice:
“Just get out there and enjoy the birds. That’s the number one thing.”
