Cleburne State Park

The shelter in place restrictions have given me a serious case of cabin fever. No gym, no going out with friends, and the general lack of other normal aspects in life makes me want to bird even more. One of the best places to get out and socially distance are our state parks. I am trying to visit all state parks, so there was an obvious choice: Cleburne State Park.

My dad and I decided to head out and see what it's all about. Golden-cheeked Warblers breed in the park and have been reported. This seemed like a great opportunity to go out and get some early migrants.

The rain was awful on our way over, and we almost had to pull over since we couldn't see anything. It let up pretty quick and we have some blue sky at the start of our hike. We wanted to do the Limestone Ridge Outer Loop, a 2 mile hike where the birds were reported. The trails are a winding, confusing mess. My recommendation is to head west towards the spillway, which is the clearer path. We got on the inner loop trail by accident.

Despite getting on the wrong trail, the hike was beautiful. Lots of post oak underneath ashe juniper. The most abundant bird was Northern Cardinal followed by White-eyed Vireo. Bird activity picked up as we climbed higher up the ridge. A buzzy "zee zee zoo weeeee" rang out, Golden-cheeked Warbler! We climbed down and back up to try and get on them, but they stopped singing before we could get on them.

Northern Cardinal

After finishing the trail we hiked to the spillway, which is stunning. The cascading waterfall was gorgeous, and the various pools were very scenic. We had a FOY Chimney Swift at the top, and this small hawk glided into view. I had never seen this before. It was small hawk with no barring on the wings, but black primaries. LIFER BROAD WINGED HAWK! I really had been missing this bird over the years, so it was a really welcome surprise to pick it up.

We stopped by Lake Pat Cleburne to scan for any ducks but we didn't have much luck. Red-winged Blackbird was singing, Canada Geese flew overhead, and we had some cormorants of both species, but that was about it.

Spillway at Cleburne State Park

In general I would say this is an excellent park for general outdoor recreation, but birding wise I think Dinosaur Valley, 20 miles away in Glen Rose, is probably the better place to visit. I'll probably make a mid-May visit out there. But now with migration about to begin my focus will be on that. I'll try some migrant traps in Dallas, but I'll also be spending at least two weekends in Houston in the next month visiting Sarah Grace so I'll definitely have to convince to go to the coast with me!