Northern Cardinal – Photo by: Patsy Kuentz
Alamo Area Master Naturalist and experienced birder Patsy Kuentz is this piece’s author. All photos in this article were taken by Patsy.
COMMON BIRDS OF PHIL HARDBERGER PARK
Before the City of San Antonio purchased 311 acres from the Voelcker Trust to create Phil Hardberger Park, the parkland was for many decades a dairy farm and then a cattle ranch. After the purchase but before the Park opened, San Antonio Audubon Society started conducting monthly surveys to learn and document the bird species seen in the Park. The surveys have continued monthly through the years and are now done by some Alamo Area Master Naturalists and a few Park staff members when they are available. These surveys, in addition to birding visitors, have now found and documented on eBird.com over 180 species in the Park. Only about 20% of those species are in the Park year-round. The rest migrate north or south through the Park going to and/or coming from their nesting areas or they migrate to the Park to spend only the summer or the winter. Thus, every season in the Park offers sightings of many different bird species.
In the winter, the restored savanna offers hiding places and an abundance of native grass seeds for wintering sparrows. Brush piles offer secure hiding places, too. Those bird species include Field Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Lark Sparrow, and White-throated Sparrow. Although it is larger than most sparrows, the Spotted Towhee is also included in this group.
Other birds joining us in the non-breeding season are several warblers such as the Orange-crowned Warbler and Yellow-rumped Warbler. While the Orange-crowned Warbler hangs out in shrubs and low-growing trees to eat the insects there, the Yellow-rumped Warbler eats insects in those same areas as well as small fruits such as Ashe Juniper, Southern Wax Myrtle, and Roughleaf Dogwood berries. The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is also found in our area during the winter, flitting quickly from one limb to another in the quest of small insects and spiders. Additionally, a small falcon, the American Kestrel, makes its way to the Park for the winter and is often seen hunting from the tops of trees to find insects, small rodents, and small songbirds.
Commonly-found birds joining us only during their breeding seasons include Black-chinned Hummingbird, Western Kingbird, Barn Swallow, and Summer Tanager. All of these birds eat small insects and spiders, but the hummingbird’s main diet is nectar from flowers. As habitat has been improved in recent years, strikingly-colored Painted Buntings now move into the Park in the early March to mate and raise families. They usually make their homes deep in leafy trees so mostly go unseen, but when they are looking for a mate in early spring they frequently sing from near the tops of trees.
Often-seen bird species year-round in the Park include White-winged and Mourning Doves and three different woodpeckers, the Golden-fronted, Ladder-backed, and Downy. The White-winged Doves frequently fly above our heads in groups of ten to twenty, but the Mourning Doves are most usually seen in trees above eye level or on the ground eating seeds. The woodpeckers are spotted most easily when they fly to and from their tree-hole nests or moving from tree to tree with their undulating flight pattern.
Our most common raptors are Red-shouldered Hawks and Cooper’s Hawks as well as both the Black Vulture and Turkey Vulture. These raptors can often be spotted far up in the sky, using their excellent eyesight to look for tasty treats on the ground. The Crested Caracara, a falcon and also a raptor, is seen in the Park with growing frequency. This species eats both live prey and already dead prey, sometimes feasting side-by-side with vultures on the ground.
Many small to medium-sized birds that can be found every month of the year in the Park are Lesser Goldfinch, Black-crested Titmouse, Carolina Chickadee, White-eyed Vireo, and Eastern Phoebe. While the titmouse, chickadee, and vireo usually look for small insects in leafy trees, the goldfinch can most often be found on or near the ground eating seeds. The Eastern Phoebe spends a lot of time on fences and fence posts trying to spot insects near the ground.
The Northern Mockingbird, our Texas State Bird and the State Bird for several other states, is a regular sighting all over the Park. It usually eats small insects and lizards in open areas with shrubby vegetation but also eats berries on plants like Flame-leaf Sumac and American Beautyberry in the fall. Seed and berry-eating Northern Cardinals are frequently seen, too, especially because the male cardinal sports brilliant red feathers that cover most of its body. In the spring, Northern Cardinal males sing from the tops of trees looking for mates. When cardinals have nestlings in the spring, they will eat insects to provide protein needed by their rapidly growing babies.
Two wren species that are hard to miss in the Park are the Carolina Wren and the Bewick’s Wren. You are most likely to see them hopping around on fallen limbs, in shrubs or grasses, or somewhere under about 20 feet in the trees. Even if you don’t see them, their loud songs in every season call attention to their nearby presence in trees or shrubs. With luck, you might even occasionally find one in a puddle in a small open area on the ground taking a bath to clean itself.
For a complete list of common birds as well as other birds seen in Phil Hardberger Park, you can find the annually-updated Bird List for the Park at this link: See Bird List – Phil Hardberger Park Updated for 2026.
RESOURCES FOR BEGINNING BIRDERS
Getting started with birding can be challenging unless you know the best ways to start. Here’s a good place to get some ideas about how to go about it: https://www.audubon.org/birding/how-to-start-birding. This article includes links to helpful information about selecting and using binoculars. Also, San Antonio expert birders Patsy and Tom Inglet have been teaching birding to adults and children for many years. A few years ago, the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy recorded a video of one of their hour-long classes. If you are brand new to birding, it is well worth your time to watch this one-hour video. You can find the video at: Virtual Nature Talk: Introduction to Birding — Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy.
In fact, the Phil Hardberger Park Conservancy has a website for the Park that includes a section for birding in the Park in general, offering a notable amount of useful information and many resources. You can find that site at: https://www.philhardbergerpark.org/birding-in-the-park.
BINOCULAR BASICS AND BIRD GUIDES
Using binoculars is often a tremendous asset in seeing details that assist in identifying birds. A reasonable pair of binoculars for beginners has an 8×25 description for the strength and size of the lenses. To get started using binoculars, be sure they are adjusted for your eyes. Always keep looking at the bird while you bring the binoculars up to your eyes. (For more detailed guidelines on binoculars, take a look at an article written by expert birders, Patsy and Tom Inglet.) Bird guides, whether phone apps or books, are very helpful, too. For learning about and identifying birds, both The Sibley Guide to Birds as well as Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America are two of several favorites among birders.
Consider using phone apps such as Merlin (that helps identify birds by sound and photo), iNaturalist (that identifies all manner of animals and plants from photos and helps the user participate in citizen science programs), and several other options. Also if you plan to do much birding, you’ll want to keep track of your bird lists and contribute to science with the eBird app and its database. The eBird database is used to create the bird list for Phil Hardberger Park.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES FOR BIRDERS
Click the link for another article about Birdwatching in Phil Hardberger Park by Alamo Area Master Naturalist Lora Reynolds.
For more information for children see, Breakfast for a Bird.