Birding Tour Partnerships

Houston Audubon is partnering with professional birding tour companies to offer leisure birding trips. The trips are designed to be about one week long at one or two locations. The birding would be relaxed, with an emphasis on seeing birds that are common and mostly easy to find and will not include early morning starts or strenuous hikes to see the birds. The goal on these trips is not to find as many birds as possible, but to provide trips for either new or less intense birders and younger or still employed birders, who cannot take extended or very expensive trips.

The birding tour companies will provide all the logistical and administrative operations as well as the guides. This provides the participants with high-quality professional bird guides and support to make these trips both rewarding and enjoyable. The companies donate a portion of the tour fee to Houston Audubon.

Jamaica with Tropical Birding

December 5-10, 2023

Tropical Birding have teamed up with the Houston Audubon to bring you a series of short, relaxed birding tours. Participants can book, knowing that part of their tour fee will be donated to the Houston Audubon Society, a very active conservation group, preserving bird habitat in Texas. The tour has been specifically designed, so that only two hotels are used on the tour, so you only have to unpack a few times. This tour focuses on the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, where the majority of the specialty birds can be seen during only a short visit, like on this tour. We will be looking for spectacular bird species like Red-billed Streamertail and Jamaican Tody, which only occur on this island, and occur alongside migrant warblers, like Prairie and Black-throated Blue Warblers that call Jamaican home during the boreal winter. There will also be the chance to taste the World-famous Blue Mountain coffee while there too. This is one of the easiest tours that we offer, with no long drives, no early starts, and a very relaxed pace. All days will feature down time during the middle of the day. The Tropical Birding tour guide will be accompanied by a Houston Audubon representative throughout, so you will be in very good hands from start to finish!

Arizona Hummingbirds with High Lonesome Birdtours

August 12-19, 2023 - This trip is now full. 

Arizona boasts the third-highest total of bird species by state in the United States, pretty impressive for being completely landlocked. In particular, the southeast corner holds the highest diversity due to the confluence of eastern and western species; and many southern species that just spill over the international border here. Southeast Arizona is a land of contrasts, where rugged, forested mountains form “sky islands” within the Sonoran Desert. Rivers, like the Santa Cruz and San Pedro, flow slowly across arid valleys, creating ribbons of greenery along their banks by supporting cottonwoods and willows. Middle elevations are covered by rich grasslands and juniper-oak woodland while the highest elevations harbor mixed coniferous forests. In between, one finds desert areas dominated by impressive saguaro cacti, dense mesquite thickets, man-made wetlands that are magnets for water birds, and ancient stands of sycamores along creeks and canyons. This variety of habitats packed into a relatively small area is home to the greatest diversity of breeding birds in the United States. Many species from further south reach their range limits in southeastern Arizona and occur nowhere else in the country. This tour will focus on these southeast Arizona specialties, including up to 13 species of hummingbirds, southwest desert birds, and the spectacular variety of nocturnal birds that can be found here.