Locations

Birding Locations

We guide across the state and can meet you anywhere. Below are Louisiana’s major birding regions accompanied by a selection of their characteristic birds. Explore these regions/birds for ideas on where to go and what birds to expect.

Shreveport - Bossier City - Monroe - Alexandria

Northern Louisiana

Home to scenic pineywoods, hardwood forests, and the Mississippi River Delta, northern Louisiana is a unique and varied region that provides excellent birding. One can listen to the ringing melody of Bachman’s Sparrows alongside the chittering of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers before venturing off into a pitcher plant bog full of beautiful and locally endemic flora. The adjacent hardwood forests hold Swainson’s and Kentucky Warblers belting powerful songs from the undergrowth. The Mississippi and Red Rivers concentrate enormous flocks of waterfowl in fall and winter. Spring migration peaks later here than on the coast and can be paired with a handful of breeding species that are nearly impossible elsewhere in Louisiana, among them Greater Roadrunner, Bell’s Vireo, Horned Lark, and Lark Sparrow. In the winter, the region is home to sought-after Central Flyway specialties like Harris’s Sparrow and Smith’s Longspur as well as some of the last remaining Eastern Bewick’s Wrens.

Pictured: Henslow’s Sparrow, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Bachman’s Sparrow, Northern Bobwhite, Bobolink, Dickcissel, Prothonotary Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush.

Lafayette - Crowley - Morgan City

Central Louisiana

If, when you think of Louisiana, crawfish and alligators come to mind, central Louisiana is the place to be. The region is split between the open fields of Acadiana, Louisiana’s rice country, and the lowland swamps of the Atchafalaya River basin. The Atchafalaya River looks like something straight out of a movie – alligators roaming black water between cypress trees draped in Spanish Moss. Prothonotary Warblers and Barred Owls breed alongside huge rookeries of waders and cormorants. The Rice Country is composed of flooded fields, seasonally full of either rice or crawfish, criss-crossed with parish roads. From these roads, you can see millions of blackbirds, tens of thousands of wintering waterfowl and waders, and Louisiana’s resident endangered Whooping Cranes. They are also a hub for migratory shorebirds, including sought after species like Hudsonian Godwit and Buff-breasted Sandpiper.

Lake CHarles - Hackberry - Cameron

Southwestern Louisiana

Southwest Louisiana has all the joys of the upper Texas coast with only a fraction of the birding pressure. The coastal woodlots concentrate migrants in spring and fall and are famous for fallout spectacles, when almost every neotropical migrant can be seen in a single day. Between the cheniers and the Gulf of Mexico is a narrow strip of beach that supports a wide variety of shorebirds, gulls, and terns through different parts of the year. Inland, rangeland is home to an assortment of wintering sparrows and migratory shorebirds, and you may even catch a White-tailed Kite twisting in the air above them. Fresh and salt marshes provide habitat for Louisiana’s famous wading birds like Roseate Spoonbills and Wood Storks alongside rails, sparrows, and waterfowl. The edges of the marsh support secretive and poorly known Yellow Rails and the federally endangered eastern Black Rail.

Baton Rouge - New Orleans - Houma - Hammond

Southeastern Louisiana

“Laissez bon temps rouler!” is the motto of eastern Louisiana, Cajun French for “Let the good times roll!” This doesn’t just refer to the food and music scene – the spectacular birding of the region epitomizes the phrase. Grand Isle is famous for its tremendous spring migration, where any and every neotropic migrant crossing the Gulf of Mexico stops to take in the bayou scenery (and perhaps enjoy a drive-through daiquiri.) The region features expansive fresh and salt marshes, home to a wide selection of waders like Roseate Spoonbills and Limpkins. Further north within the region, pine flatwoods harbor Bachman’s Sparrows and endangered Red-cockaded Woodpeckers while adjacent uplands hold the full suite of southeastern breeding birds. In the fall, the levee of Lake Pontchartrain one of only a few sites in the south with morning flight, sometimes involving a stream of thousands of migrating passerines. The region also harbors a fascinating group of overwintering western birds and neotropic migrants, from Groove-billed Anis to Myiarchus flycatchers to Prairie Warblers.

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