A Slow Morning at the Sabine Woods Sanctuary

Sabine Woods

Date: April 30, 2025 

Place: Sabine Woods Sanctuary

Coordinates: 29.698291, -93.947992

Level: easy

 

 

The forth day of our trip to southeast Texas, the day after our unexpectedly long hike at the Big Thicket National Preserve was also dedicated to birding, which meant a few shorter hikes in birding hot spot places. The first of these places was Sabine Woods Sanctuary near Port Arthur, very close to the Louisiana border. Before entering the sanctuary we stopped briefly at the Sea Rim State Park nearby to see what we could find there. We didn't find much - that park is mainly recreational, but we did get to see many crabs in the low tide's exposed mud. 

Gulf Marsh Fiddler Crab

 Sabine Woods Sanctuary is a small area managed by the Texas Ornithological Society. It is right by the Gulf, therefore also one of the places where migratory birds come to stop and rest after their long flight across the water. 

The trail system in Sabine Woods is very extensive for such a small place. Nearly every gap between trees is a trail. Just like in the Audubon Society sanctuaries we visited on our second day of the trip, it is pointless to mention what trails and how much distance we walked. It really doesn't matter. We simply wandered around at a museum-walk pace and stopped frequently where birds were seen or more likely, where other birders were aggregated. 

I don't know the history of Sabine Woods but I found plenty of evidence that it used to be someone's homestead. The first evidence came in the form of an untended flower field. 

The floral display in that open field was gorgeous. Many species of very colorful flowers were at their peak bloom in that field. 

Golden Wave Tickseed, Coreopsis basalis

Pretty much all of these colorful flowers were domestic cultivars of landscaping and garden plants, a strong evidence that a domestic garden was in that place one time. 

Phlox

Normally I wouldn't pay much attention to domestic garden plants that I come across on my hikes. In this case however, those deserted and neglected garden variants were a solid part of this place's story. 

Poppy

Moreover, when no one reins them in, these domestic cultivars who find the local conditions favorable, were integrating themselves in the local nature. In the future, they'll become an integral part of the area's wild landscape. 

Rose

I don't want to turn this post into a gallery of garden flowers so I post only a few of them here. Not all the flowers in that field were domesticated however. Some were definitely wildflowers, such as this local Texan paintbrush. 

Texan Indian Paintbrush, Castilleja indivisa

The Texan paintbrush I already seen along roadsides from driving around the area but what really surprised me was finding a few California poppies blooming in that field. I have no idea how did they get there. 

Not seeing any birds in the flower field, Pappa Quail started moving to into the woods and I followed him. 

Much of the undergrowth comprised of brambles. A few of the blackberries were already ripe and I took a moment to enjoy myself with the delicious fruit. 

Blackberry, Rubus sp.

 Most of the blackberries were still in bloom, in a promise of a long berry season ahead. 

Blackberry, Rubus sp.

 

We joined a small group of birders that were sitting on a wooden bench and gazing at a mulberry tree a few yards away. The mulberry tree was laden with ripe fruit and there was much bird activity in its canopy. 

Most of those birds were cedar waxwings. Cedar waxwings are very pretty and very noisy. They are also pretty common and we see them often in California, frequently right outside our house. We enjoyed seeing them but Pappa Quail wanted to see other bird species.   

Cedar Waxwings

A blue jay was also up the mulberry tree, enjoying the tree's bounty. Blue jays are en eastern bird so it was definitely a worth sighting, although we have seen them before on other trips to the east. 

Blue Jay

The grackles are very common also and the local birders were ignoring them completely, but some of those the grackle species we don't get to see in California so Pappa Quail did take photos of them. 

Common Grackle

Little by little I detached myself from the birders crowd and got closer to another mulberry tree nearby. There I busied myself with picking and munching mulberries as I observed the bird watches. 

Mulberry

Eventually Pappa Quail joined me and we resumed our wandering through the trees. I kept my attention on forest floor wildflowers but also for other sights such as the beautiful green pondhawk dragonfly, which I had already seen on other hikes in this trip. 

Eastern Pondhawk

I did see other wildflowers blooming at the forest floor. U haven't the knowledge of the local flora there to know if they were native or introduces. 

Sunshine Mimosa, Mimosa strigillosa

Some of these flowers I wasn't even sure were wild. The firewheel was away from the garden field but it could have been a cultivar that escaped and established itself in a distance. 

Firewheel, Gaillardia pulchella

The few mulberry trees where the first birding station we went to was made only a small part of the little forest of Sabine Woods. Nearly all other trees were oaks, many of them old and venerable. Their large boughs interlocked above to form a continuous canopy under which we walked for most of our time in the sanctuary. 

Oaks Trail

The next flower I saw blooming there I recognized, at least on the genus level. I have seen its like in Puerto Rico last year. 

Butterfly PeaCentrosema virginianum

Our next stop was a small, murky pond that was named Howard's Water Feature. The sign was old and decorated with a canine skull. 

 

By the pond was a bench on which sat a couple of elderly birders. Pappa Quail joined then and for some time they were all staring at a small, muddy puddle near the pond that looked completely devoid of birds. Or anything other than pond scum. 

Howard's Water Feature

After a small chat Pappa Quail got up again and we turned our attention to the other part of the pond which was covered in duckweed. 

Howard's Water Feature

There didn't seem to be much bird activity there either, but there was some - a single female great-tailed grackle settled on a low twig and handled something in her beak. 

Great-tailed Grackle, female

After some staring we detected some movement on the shore of the pond - it was a solitary northern waterthrush, like the one we saw two days before at the Boy Scout Audubon Sanctuary. 

Northern Waterthrush

We moved on along the pond. I continued noticing wildflower. Other than that floral field at the beginning, all the other flowers I saw were one here, one there, not in any cohesive patches. 

Hairypod Cowpea, Vigna luteola

At that time we were also encountering another species of the local wildlife, and one we didn't want to encounter - mosquitoes. We were still scratching the bites from yesterday's hike and now we were acquiring new ones. 

As soon as I made a comment about the apparent absence of alligators Pappa Quail found one and pointed it out to me. They were here too. I was getting used to their presence I guess, because I approached the water to get a better look.  

American Alligator

There were other animals that we saw along the shore of the pond. We've seen bullfrogs earlier too but now we saw one that was as large as its name implied, and it was right by the shore too. 

American Bullfrog

Pond wildlife would be complete without the resident pond slider turtle. Sure enough, a turtle was sunning itself on a fallen log outside of the water. 

Pond Slider Turtle

We curved back through the oaks to the first station in the hope of seeing birds other than waxwings. I left Pappa Quail there to chat with his fellow birders and continued wandering through the trees on my own for a while. 

There were a few mushrooms below the trees. They looked and smelled fresh. 

I also found a few more flowers, but for the most part I didn't see much else that was new. At one point I did spot a pretty warbler and called Pappa Quail over, but by the time he came, the bird had disappeared. 

Cuben Jute, Sida rhombifolia

Pappa Quail got to see a couple other birds at the first birding station. Neither of them was a lifer but they were nice to see. The orchard oriole was definitely a bird we don't get to see in California.

Orchard Oriole

Catbirds to range in California as well, but they are not a common sight for us so it was nice to see it here. 

Gray Catbird

Sabine Woods is a small place. Although we walked really slow and spent much time observing the birding stations, we did cover the entire area before the morning was over. Pappa Quail wasn't impressed with the morning's bird count. He wanted to go to a place where he expected to see many more birds, so after we got out of the sanctuary Pappa Quail opened the navigator app to set a route to Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.