For much of the year, the skies above Central Texas are busier than they appear.
Birds migrating between North and South America pass through the region along the Central Flyway, making Waco and the surrounding communities a stopping point for hundreds of species. For those who know where to look, a walk through Central Texas can reveal a flash of color in the trees, a call from somewhere overhead, or a species that may only pass through for a few days.
For decades, the Central Texas Audubon Society has helped people notice them.
“Birds tend to tunnel right through the center of Texas on their migrations, both north and south,” said Clint Trimble, president of the Central Texas Audubon Society. “Roughly 1,000 bird species can be seen in North America, and we get about 600 of them. Over half of all the bird species that you could experience in North America pass through Texas. Now if that’s not cool, I don’t know what is.”
Read more: The Birds at Baylor and Beyond
Each migration brings millions of birds through the heart of Texas, and the Central Texas Audubon Society takes the opportunity to share the exciting news with the Waco community while advocating for the migratory birds’ safety on their journey.
Anna Dunbar, a longtime board member and administrator of the Central Texas society, explained that a group of local ornithologists and birdwatchers hosted the first Waco Christmas Bird Count in 1957, later becoming an official nonprofit entity in 1979. The group was organized by local birders and civic scientists in 1969, operating as an informal regional group in its first decade.
The Christmas Bird Count is one of various advocacy and education efforts led by the Central Texas society and the National Audubon Society broadly to emphasize the importance of birds to the Waco community and beyond. The annual census, which began nationally in 1900, tracks birds’ population sizes and migratory patterns over time and helps inform conservation decisions. In 2025, 36 people took part in Waco’s count, Dunbar said.
“It’s called civic science, and it’s used by the government to make decisions across the nation, so national parks and other areas can be affected,” Trimble said.
Over decades, those tallies also show how birds’ territorial ranges are shifting, sometimes right in Waco.
“The first time the Christmas Bird Count saw white-winged doves was in 1992, and that’s because the white-winged doves were pushing their territory further north,” Dunbar said. “But in 2025, there were almost 150 white-winged doves counted over Christmas break.”
Aside from its efforts in the field, the Central Texas society also partners with local sites and organizations to provide information and birding opportunities to the public. The group meets once a month at the Mayborn Museum Complex to engage in bird-centric conversations led by experts and enthusiasts.
“We have everything that goes from people showing off their photos that they took on a cool trip, all the way to a class I teach called ornitherapy, which is the idea of conceptualizing nature through the lens of birdwatching as a way to deal with cortisol levels and affect our brains in positive ways,” Trimble said.
That connection to nature is also what brings Audubon Society members together beyond the meeting space, with regular opportunities to explore Central Texas and its birdlife as a community.
“We do bird walks about once a month, with the exception of summer months,” Dunbar said. “And we’re trying to do more events that can include everyone of all abilities as well.”
Bird walks look different for everyone, ranging from casual to extravagant, beginner to committed. Last year, the Central Texas Audubon took a group on a birding trip to Costa Rica, and recently hosted a bird walk at the Lake Waco Golf Club. The group has also begun hosting Big Sits, where members stay in one spot for a few hours and count every bird species they see or hear.
“We are trying to have some spaces that are for the visually or hearing impaired, where you can, for instance, have a handrail where you walk through a bit of nature and maybe have an audiobook,” Trimble said.
For many members, their birding adventure begins with a single bird that makes them stop and look twice.
Trimble, who regularly travels for birding expeditions, encountered his spark bird (the bird that first gets someone hooked on birding) on a research trip he took with Baylor professors to Costa Rica. He was the only person on the trip who wasn’t a birdwatcher and for two weeks cautiously watched as his fellow travelers got more and more excited over the birds.
“Then we stopped at a place called Trogon Lodge and saw a quetzal,” Trimble said. “It has these long green tail feathers and looks like the most ornate pigeon you’ve ever seen. And literally, my thought was, ‘I’m going to spend a lot of money on this hobby,’ and that was it.”
Since that initial trip, Trimble has visited the Arctic, Central America, South America, and traveled through the Amazon observing birds as a part of ecotourism. Now Trimble hopes to help create those moments of discovery for others while protecting the birds and habitats that make them possible.
Read more: Anna Dunbar: Waco’s Sustainability Savant
The Central Texas Audubon Society aims to give back to the Waco community by safeguarding bird habitats and protecting the species that use Waco as a rest stop along their migratory routes. It protects those that nest in Waco, too, including the endangered golden-cheeked warbler, the only bird species with breeding habitat exclusively in Texas.
One way the community can contribute to these efforts is by participating in the Lights Out, Texas! initiative, which asks residents and businesses to turn off non-essential artificial lights at night during spring and fall migration seasons. According to the National Audubon Society, reducing excess lighting along migration corridors also reduces disorientation and accidental bird strikes — one of the top human-related causes of death for birds.
The Central Texas chapter’s advocacy efforts have expanded onto Baylor’s campus, where sophomore Chandler Clark and senior Connor Bennett are working to charter a campus Audubon chapter.
“As human society continues to develop, we’re going to build more structures, and these structures kill birds,” Clark said.
Seeing the impact the University has on the local Waco community, the pair was inspired to charter a campus group. They also attempt to unite students who share their love of birding.
“Baylor has a lot of influence over Waco itself and surrounding areas, so I think being able to tackle a lot of the issues inside of the campus is really good for being able to maintain this environmental consciousness,” Clark said.
“They are the future, and if you enter your young adulthood knowing about birds and being enthusiastic about birds, chances are that it’ll carry throughout your life,” Dunbar said. “These students seem very enthusiastic, and they really want to do it, and we’re very hopeful that it can happen.”
As new generations of birders begin to take an interest in the natural world around them, Trimble hopes that enthusiasm will extend beyond the Central Texas Audubon Society and into the broader Waco community.
“I think that the city of Waco has a lot of spaces that are still natural and can stay natural because they’ll never be useful in any other way,” Trimble said. “I would love for us, as an organization, to give people access to those spaces through the lens of birdwatching and just nature as a whole.”
