Brewster County - 1937 - 2020

Including Big Bend National Park

Column 1. Current List - An all-inclusive list that includes eBird records and all past records if they have been accepted. One record I have taken off the current list is that of Mountain Plover. The 1939 list by Van Tyne and Sutton mentions several birds observed in the grasslands near Marathon, Texas. Mountain Plovers were seen with some regularity in the Trans-Pecos grasslands until the mid-1980s, so there is little reason to doubt the authors. However, it is unclear whether there have been any reliable observations in the last 20-30 years in Brewster County. I have chosen not to list it in the current accepted list.

I have also added Mountain Chickadee to the current list. While this species is listed in eBird, this bird is not a review species and should not be expected anywhere in Brewster County. Wauer had "chickadee sp" in his "Birds of Uncertain Occurrence" list in 1996. Mountain Chickadee was finally confirmed in the Chisos Mountains in 2003, but there are very few good records.

Column 2. Ro Wauer, 1996 - This list is taken from Ro Wauer's publication "A Field Guide to the Birds of the Big Bend, 2nd ed.".

Column 3. Van Tyne and Sutton, 1937 - This list is taken from "The Birds of Brewster County Texas" by Josselyn Van Tyne and George Miksch Sutton in 1937. It is perhaps the first annotated checklist from the region.

A printable checklist in PDF format is available at the bottom of this page.

Brewster County Printable Checklist. Click the "pop-out" button on the top right corner, open and print.