Birding Between Alligators at Cattail Marsh

Cattail Marsh

 

 

 

Date: April 27, 2025

Place: Cattail Marsh, Beaumont, Texas

Coordinates: 30.007360, -94.142567

Length: 2.9 miles

Level: easy 

 

 

The first full day of our 2024 Thanksgiving vacation, Pappa Quail and me spent hiking with good friends at the Big Thicket National Preserve. After we had lunch we split ways - our friends took to the road for their long drive home while Pappa Quail and I went to Cattail Marsh for a birding walk. Right there at the parking lot were human-made bird houses that housed purple martin nests. Purple martins are a species of swallow. Pappa Quail have seen them on a previous visit there, but to me they were lifers. 

Purple Martin

The Cattail Marsh is a large area of former rice fields that were turned into all seasons ponds. We started our walk at a boardwalk leading to an observation gazebo over the water.  

2.9 miles

As it turned out, there wasn't much open water to see. Nearly all the pond's surface was covered with aquatic plants. Pappa Quail said that it wasn't like that last time he was there, which was in March of 2023.  At that time, he said, there was much more open water and much less vegetation cover. There were more waterfowl then too, he said. 

Boardwalk

From the boardwalk above the marsh I had a good view of the plants below me, and an opportunity to take a look at those that were blooming 

Lanceleaf Arrowhead, Sagittaria lancifolia 

It was one of those places where the vegetation was so different than that I was familiar with that it sure felt like a different country. 

Pickerelweed, Pontederia cordata

We walked slowly along the boardwalk. I looked at the plants below me and Pappa Quail searched the green fields for interesting fowl. 

Alligatorweed, Alternanthera philoxeroides

 Cattail Marsh officially belongs to Big Thicket National Preserve. but the thicket there was thoroughly aquatic, and low-growing.Much of the green marsh cover was water hyacinth, an invasive species from Asia that spreads on fresh and brackish water. It thrives in the Sacramento River delta as well, causing blockages of the numerous water ways of the delta. There in the delta the hyacinth is being actively removed but here in the Cattail Marsh, I haven't seen any evidence of plant removal. 

Cattail Marsh

There were a few holes and openings in the vegetation cover, through which we could see the open water. In one such hole below the boardwalk I saw a school of small fish. 

Pappa Quail then called for my attention. He pointed down at the water hyacinth below. There, light upon the leaves, walked a purple gallinule. I, used to the simple common gallinules of California, dropped my jaw at the sight of this bird. Its gorgeous, iridescent plumage reflected metallic blue and green, and even purple colors in the bright sunlight. Adding the red beak and eyes and the bright yellow legs and you got the full technicolor bird. 

Purple Gallinule

There were plenty of common gallinules there as well. They are pretty birds on their own right, but near the purple gallinules they looked simple and almost boring. 

Common Gallinule

As if reading my thoughts one of the so-called 'simple' common gallinules turned and mooned me with its full spread of tail, flagging with its underside white plumage. 

Common Gallinule's behind

On our way back down from the boardwalk I noticed a familiar plant - a tule rush. The tule is common in California's wetlands. Here there was some, but not a whole lot. 

I noticed some buttercups blooming at the base of the boardwalk. They looked very similar to many buttercup species that I see in California. They were of a different species, of course. 

Hairy Buttercup, Ranunculus sardous

The trail surrounding the ponds was a wide dirt road closed to vehicles. The trail was on a raised levee with a clear view on both sides.  An easy walk, for sure. We started our hike going clock-wise.

Trail

As soon as we started our walk I was looking for the alligators. Pappa Quail had been here before with the elder chika on their 2023 birding trip, and he told me this place has many alligators and that they come really close to the trail. As for me, give me a bear any day, but the alligators I was afraid of. They fascinate me a great deal too. I wanted very much to see the alligators, but not too close. 

Pappa Quail wasn't concerned with the alligators. He was there for the birds. He lamented that the ponds were too overgrown with aquatic plants and too short of waterfowl. 

Red-winged Black Bird, male

There were other flying beings in Cattail Marsh besides birds, and Pappa Quail photographed the prettier ones, and swatted at the others. 

Dragonfly

While most of the bloom I saw there was of the aquatic plants within the marsh, there were also some plants blooming right by the side of the trail. Some of them I remembered from our last November's trip in South Carolina. 

Three-lobed False Mallow, Malvastrum coromandelianum

Throughout the walk we kept looking across the marsh ponds area. We could hear bird calls but we barely saw any fowl - the marsh was almost completely covered in vegetation, with very few clearings here and there. 

After we walked some distance without seeing much however, the birds started to pop out of the vegetation. It begun with ducks that took ff into the air, only to land some distance further away. 

Blue-winged Teal

The whistling ducks we don't see in California at all. The fulvous whistling duck was a lifer for me, although Pappa Quail was very pleased to see it again. 

Fulvous Whistling-Duck

The trees on our left opened up a bit and revealed a large, lush golf course beyond the preserve's borders. There was a county park there, Pappa Quail said. I wondered how calm were the golfers with all the alligators in this area. Perhaps they weren't as dangerous as I thought? 

Golf Course

I brought my attention back to the trail, where I identified a wildflower species that I knew from California. 

Common Selfheal, Prunella vulgaris

At some point the aquatic plants opened up a bit closer to the trail and we had direct view of the water. It was there that I spotted the forst alligator - a small one. It slid away behind the plants before we were able to take its photo. There were a couple of coots there also, but they too didn't cooperate with the camera/.

We neared the corner of the ponds loop when I noticed an orange spot in the midst of the marsh vegetation. I pointed it out to Pappa Quail and he raised his camera. It was a black-bellied whistling duck, like those we've seen in South Carolina last fall. 

Black-bellied Whistling-[Duck

We turned the corner and started east. The trail, a levee-raised dirt road, looked exactly the same as before turning. 

A common wildflower that bloomed near and on the trail was the pink ladies. It reminded me the Mexican primrose that is an introduced species in California.

Pink Ladies, Oenothera speciosa

Soon we were walking between two ditches.The ditch on the right had open water, but no waterfowl in it. 

 

The ditch on the left was obscured by vegetation. A hiker that crossed our path told us that there was a wild hog in the bushes by that ditch. We saw the bushes move, but not the hog. A single grackle stood sentinel atop one of those bushes. 

Great-tailed Grackle

There were no waterfowl in the clear ditch to our right but on the levee across it stood two black-bellied whistling ducks. These ducks are truly beautiful. 

Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks

About half way through the northern arm of the marsh-surrounding trail we saw that there was another trail cutting back south between the ponds. We decided to take it and return between the ponds, perhaps we'll get to see more waterfowl. Right by the corner of the trail junction was a small mud island, and on that island were three shorebirds of three different species. The first one we identified immediately - it was a black-necked stilt. 

Black-necked Stilt

The two other shorebirds were harder to see - they were well camouflaged. The yellowlegs was more visible because of his yellow legs. In California we get to see the greater yellowlegs more frequently. This one was a lesser yellowlegs.  

Lesser Yellowlegs

The third shorebird looked to me just like another yellowlegs ... but it wasn't it was a solitary sandpiper, a lifer bird species for both Pappa Quail and me. 

Solitary Sandpiper

Behind the mud island with the shorebirds was another patch of open water and a single duck was swimming there. It was a lesser scaup, another duck species we were familiar with from California.

Lesser Scaup

The trail between the ponds was also on a raised levee, but there was no dirt road there. Instead, the levee was covered with short-mowed grass. 

We started walking south on the grass-grown levee when Pappa Quail stopped and looked west. A mass of willow trees grew in a thicket there, and on the trees were many, many heron-type birds. 

Green Heron

We stopped there for quire a log while, trying to see and identify all the birds that were perching there, and there were many of them.  

White-faced Ibis

Some of the herons we saw in those trees were of species that we don't get to see in California. It took me a while to tell some of the species from one another, like the tricolored heron from the little blue heron. It was easier for me to tell the differences in the photos, after the fact. 

Tricolored Heron

There were many birds in those trees, but it wasn't a rookery. There were no nests there at all. Perhaps they were getting ready to roost for the night, but it was still pretty early though. 

Little Blue Heron

I had no problems recognizing the cattle egrets. There were a bunch of those cattle egret in that part of Texas, perhaps because there were many cows all around. 

Western Cattle Egret

We continued down the levee trail, chatting about different things. A grackle perched on a dead branch by the side of the trail. Pappa Quail ignored the grackle - there were too many of them all over the place. I liked the image of that bird against the sky though. 

We continued on when suddenly we noticed a long, gray thing on the side of the trail in the distance. It turned out to be a small alligator - the first one we could see clearly. We tried approaching slowly and carefully, but before we could even contemplate if the situation posed any danger, the small alligator darted into the pond and disappeared. 

I was amazed at how quickly the alligator moved. Pappa Quail was amazed at the fact that the alligator appeared to fear us. We started joking about me, being the great alligator bane, and about that alligator being a self-conscious lizard. Before we noticed, we were passing the line of the observation deck on the east. 

A crested caracara flew overhead, and our focus changed from the alligators to the fact that we were seeing very few raptor birds on this trip so far. 

Crested Caracara

One of the raptors that we were looking to see were bald eagles. A line of trees marked the northern boundary of the preserve. On one of the trees was a bald eagle's nest, and other birders had pointed it to us. The nest had two eaglets, we were told, but we couldn't see them from that distance. We barely saw the one adult bird that perched above the nest, keeping guard. 

Another grackle that we saw on the way did capture Pappa Quail's attention - it was a boat-tailed grackle, a species that we don't get to see in California. 

Boat-tailed Grackle

I noticed a little sparrow down in the grass on the trail. It was a savanna sparrow. Not a lifer, but Pappa Quail did try to capture its photo. The sparrow kept hopping away as we approached, evading a clear shot. Eventually it jumped on a dead plant stem and came into clear view for the brief moment it took to get photographed. 

Savanna Sparrow

The water hyacinth grew so thickly that we could barely see any open water at all. on this part of the walk we saw no waterfowl at all. 

We were nearing the south arm of the marsh-surrounding trail, where we planned to turn back west. Right before the turn however, rested a large alligator, and he was facing the trail. Pappa Quail looked at each other. This was no small beast and should we walk where we had planned, we would be going right by its mouth. On the other hand, the alternative was to backtrack, hoping that we wouldn't find any alligator waiting for us on the other end. 

American Alligator

We approached the junction carefully, and to our great relief we noticed a short bypass that connected to the circumference trail a bit further up, bypassing the big alligator. Naturally, we went down that way. On the way I spotted a blooming water hyacinth and Pappa Quail got me a close-up photo of the hyacinth flowers. 

Common Water Hyacinth

We also passed a small clearing in the ubiquitous blanket of hyacinth. The water in the small clearing seemed turbulent - perhaps it was where the pump was that moved water from one pond to another. 

There were no waterfowl in the clear water, but there was a single purple gallinule walking carefully on the water hyacinth that surrounded the clearing. 

We ended up passing a few more alligators on our way back. all of them were large, and all of them were wide awake and were looking at us. It was good that I couldn't interpret their expression. I just hoped none of them were hungry.

American Alligator

Thankfully, none of the alligators were right on the trail, although a couple of them were uncomfortably close. We passed them all without an incident. None of them moved even an inch. We warned a pair of other hikers that were going that way, but they only seemed excited about the prospect of seeing alligators from a close distance. 

American Alligator

I was relieved when we turned the final corner and were going north again, to complete the loop trail. There were no more alligators on that part of the trail. 

We completed the loop trail, having seeing many birds and having managed to not get eaten by alligators. It was a very successful birding hike indeed! We got a wonderful bonus on our drive back to the lodge where we stayed, when we saw yellow-capped night herons, lifers for me and best photo yet for Pappa Quail, foraging right by the side of the road in the neighborhood. 

Yellow-crowned Night Heron