Access is key for birders, and the Prairies and Pineywoods Wildlife Trails in Northeast Texas provide it – more than 250 viewing sites, from urban to woods and prairies on both public and private lands.

The variety and access make the com­bined trails one of the two top birding destinations in Texas.

“To find shore birds in east Texas, you have to have access to water, which is a tough thing to do,” says David Brotherton, an avid birder from Daingerfield.

“The really great thing for birders (on these trails) is you have permission,” he says.

The habitats vary greatly and with them the bird species.

“In the north part there are more prairies and open grasses but you don’t have to go far to get into piney woods,” Brotherton says.

The list of what can be seen from the trails is long:

• Scissor-tailed flycatchers and Cooper’s hawks in the Blackland Prairie Habitat;
• Grasshopper sparrows, Eastern mead­owlarks and dickcissels on open grassland in private ranches;
• Indigo buntings and summer tanagers in woodland areas;
• Great blue herons, egrets, kingfishers near lakes, rivers and streams;
• Several different colorful warblers, the red-shouldered hawk and com­mon nighthawk in the Big Thicket forest area.

Regional favorites included the large pileated woodpecker, the loud one that makes “the Woody Woodpecker noise,” Brotherton says, and bald eagles, which nest in spots throughout the region. That wasn’t happening when he moved to Texas in 1981 and has picked up in the last six years, he says.

Chris Gunn’s favorite is the pileated woodpecker. He’s the ranger at Atlanta State Park in Cass County and watches as scores of birding groups from Texas and across the country visit, especially in the fall.

Fall brings the migratory birds, and in November the park had several, including pelicans. The park also is home to nesting bald eagles.

For more information: www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/wildlife_trails/.