To various communities and leaders, Southwestern Louisiana is one of the premier birding destinations in Louisiana. Cameron Parish has the single most extensive species list among our 64 parishes. The region is a birder's paradise with a combination of beaches, coastal and fresh marshes, remnant prairie, bottomland forest corridors, and coastal oak maritime forests (cheniers). 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.

Green Heron Photo: David Moynahan/Audubon Photography Awards

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

Find out more information about the birds in Southwestern Louisiana.