Southwestern Louisiana is perhaps the premier birding destination in Louisiana. Cameron Parish has the single largest species list among our 64 parishes. With a combination of beaches, coastal and fresh marshes, remnant prairie, bottomland forest corridors, and coastal oak maritime forests (cheniers), the region is a birder’s paradise. This is the most likely location in the state to find western vagrants, and many first-state records of birds like Painted Redstart, Pyrrhuloxia, and Ladder-backed Woodpecker have been documented here.

Birding can be exceptional year-round in the region. In spring, radar data has shown that the area near the border or Texas and Louisiana has shown the largest concentration of Neotropical migrant birds passing through the Gulf Coast on their way north. In the right conditions between late March and early May, cheniers and fields can be littered with colorful warblers, grosbeaks, buntings, and vireos. The beaches are home to nesting Least Terns and Wilson’s Plovers, but also provide important stopover habitat for a variety of waterbirds and seabirds. The marshes ring loud with rails, wrens, and sparrows.

Below is more information about birding and bird festivals in this region.

• Baton Rouge Audubon's Peveto Woods Sanctuary
• America's Wetland Birding Trail, Creole Loop
• America's Wetland Birding Trail, Sabine Loop
• America's Wetland Birding Trail, St. Mary Loop
• America's Wetland Birding Trail, Vermilion Loop
• America's Wetland Birding Trail, Lacassine Loop
• Yellow Rails and Rice Festival
• Gulf Coast Bird Club 
• Louisiana Ornithological Society Birding Links