Far West Texas is wonderfully diverse in avian life. Its river canyons, desert badlands, high prairies and “sky island” forests host more than 500 bird species – or almost half the birds found in Texas.
It’s made the region a premier birding destination, and West Texas avians have passionate local advocates. That includes Trans-Pecos Bird Conservation, or TBC. This small but potent cadre of bird experts is cultivating the bonds between our region’s birds and its people.
TBC’s work is twofold: the nonprofit funds education and research on Trans-Pecos birds, and it generates funds by hosting the Davis Mountains Hummingbird Celebration.
Cecilia Riley is TBC’s board president.
“As people have pointed out to me, ‘Well, if all you're trying to do is raise money for research and education projects, why don't you just write a grant proposal? It's a lot easier,’” Riley said. “But part of our mission at Trans-Pecos Bird Conservation is sharing the avian diversity of this area with people.”
Riley had a distinguished career as an ornithologist – with The Nature Conservancy and the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory, among other groups – before retiring to the Davis Mountains.
It’s a trajectory shared by other TBC board members. Riley’s collaborators include Linda Hedges, a former Texas Parks & Wildlife Department biologist and interpreter, and Madge Lindsay. A pioneer in nature tourism, Lindsay spearheaded the country’s first birding trail, on the Texas Gulf Coast, and organized the Great Texas Birding Classic, an annual competition.
The group came together in 2019 to revive the two-decade-old Davis Mountains Hummingbird Celebration. The summer event is now held every two years.
The 2025 celebration had 170 registrants and 30 out-of-town birding guides.
In the U.S., Trans-Pecos Texas is second only to southeastern Arizona in migratory hummingbird diversity. Festival attendees visit homes, ranches and nature preserves from the Davis Mountains to Terlingua, Valentine to Marathon.
It’s demanding for property owners, and Riley’s group must ensure lodging and dining for more than 200 people – no small task in a rural area. But it’s a boon for the local economy.
“And the reason Trans-Pecos Bird Conservation continues this effort,” Riley said, “is because we do get some proceeds from the event every year, and we try to put that back into birds, as well as back into our landowners – just to show the value of birds in our community so that they're appreciated by all, even if they're not birders.”
The TBC has used event revenues to print local birding guides. It’s published a manual for providing “water for wild birds” – an increasingly urgent topic in a drying climate. And it’s funded cutting-edge research.
That includes a study by Alpine’s Borderlands Research Institute of owls in the Davis Mountains. TBC funds purchased autonomous recording units, or ARUs, which were deployed in remote canyons. The audio revealed that the Davis are nesting habitat for more owl species than we once knew.
Now, the TBC is supporting Mexican scientists working in the Sierra del Carmen, opposite Big Bend National Park. Bird-wise, these mountains are terra incognita, but they’re thought to be prime breeding ground for one of the borderlands’ most famous birds, the Colima warbler. Recording devices will shed light on that mystery.
“It's like understanding what's in an ocean,” Riley said. “We’re learning a lot more about environments that are difficult for us to get into. We've gotten to fund some really cool stuff.”
Birds are at the vibrant heart of our region’s natural heritage. With expertise and passion, the volunteers of Trans-Pecos Bird Conservation are working to celebrate and sustain them.
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