The Golden-cheeked Warbler: A Texas Treasure in Trouble

Imagine a tiny bird, no bigger than your hand, so vibrant it catches your eye from across a field.

This is the Golden-cheeked warbler, a Texas treasure, a songbird, and one you won't find anywhere else in the world. Sadly, this makes them incredibly vulnerable. They're endangered, which means their numbers are dwindling, and we need to better understand them and their needs to help them survive.

The Golden-cheeked Warbler, or Setophaga chrysoparia, is one of five endangered species of interest to the Brazos River Authority that lie within the Brazos River Basin. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department have both given the species an endangered ranking. The Brazos River Authority's Environmental Services Department regularly tracks those rankings since the bird calls the basin home.

The male Golden-cheeked warbler is a bit of a show-off. Bright yellow cheeks contrasting with a jet-black throat and back, he has a black cap on his head, two white stripes on his wings, and a black stripe through the eye. Meanwhile, striking a more subtle look, the females wear a more muted yellow across their chests and sport an olive-green back.

Both have a slightly curved beak, perfect for snatching up insects hiding on leaves and bark. They are tiny, weighing next to nothing and stretching four or five inches long with a wingspan of about eight inches. The lower breast and belly of both sexes are white with black streaks on the flanks.

Golden-cheeked warblers love to travel. They migrate, meaning they fly long distances between their summer and winter homes. They spend their summers, roughly from March to July, in the oak-juniper woodlands of Central Texas. When fall rolls around and the weather cools down, the warblers head south to southern Mexico and Central America for the winter. They spend the colder months there, finding food and preparing for the long trip back to Texas in the spring.

When it's time to eat, the Golden-cheeked Warbler selects from a menu of caterpillars, spiders, beetles, and other insects found in foliage and barks of oaks and other trees, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Females lay three to four eggs and usually nest only once per season, unless a nest is lost to accident or predators, according to TPWD. The warblers build a cup-shaped nest, often nestled snugly in the fork of a vertical branch. They're masters of camouflage - the nests blend with the tree's bark, making them hard to spot. These nests are usually about 15 feet off the ground, though they've been found as low as five feet and as high as 32. And while the female incubates the eggs, the male stays nearby, singing his distinctive song and guarding his territory, according to the TPWD.

The eggs hatch in 12 days.

Of the nearly 360 bird species that breed in Texas, the Golden-cheeked Warbler is the only one that nests exclusively in Texas – a factor that makes them so vulnerable. But not all of Texas. To make things more difficult for the tiny bird, the Golden-cheeked Warbler's entire nesting range is currently confined to habitat in 33 counties, according to the TPWD. You are likely to hear this bird's melodic call in the Edwards Plateau and north of Palo Pinto County.

The warbler is extremely dependent on their habitat. Due to a loss of tall juniper and oak woodlands where these tiny birds build their nests, they are endangered. Many of those trees are lost when they are cleared to build houses, roads or crops and grass for livestock, according to the TPWD.

Habitat loss like this can lead to population declines and, in some cases, extinction, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The Golden-cheeked Warbler was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. Texas protects vulnerable plant and animal species through two main avenues: state law and the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). A species can be designated as threatened or endangered in Texas under either, or sometimes both, of these protections. A species listed as threatened or endangered by the state of Texas is only considered at risk within the state's borders. This means that while a species might be in trouble in Texas, it might be doing fine in other areas. On the other hand, a federal listing under the ESA signifies that a species is in danger of extinction across all or a significant portion of its entire range, according to the TPWD.

Fortunately, there are groups working to protect our tiny friend and its home. As part of the ongoing conservation efforts to preserve this uniquely Texan bird, the United States Department of Defense, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, along with other agencies and private landowners, have engaged in conservation easements for the land and habitat acquisition and management of Golden-cheeked Warbler's breeding habitat. Conservation practices on these lands are simple—preserving old-growth dense woodlands and forests and monitoring population.

Other suggested efforts to improve the habitat for these birds include wild pig trapping, cowbird control, native and exotic deer control, and prescribed burns, which reduce accumulated brush piles near habitat edges.

If you live in a region where the Golden-cheeked Warbler nests, Texas Parks and Wildlife has a comprehensive guide that will help you determine whether a Golden-cheeked Warbler may use your property as a habitat and how to maintain your property with the preservation of the warbler in mind.

"Private landowners have a tremendous opportunity to conserve and manage the fish and wildlife resources of Texas," the TPWD guide states . "The objective of these guidelines is to provide landowners with recommendations about how typically-used agricultural land management practices could be conducted so that it would be unlikely that Golden-cheeked Warblers would be adversely impacted. TPWD biologists have prepared these guidelines in consultation with USFWS biologists to assure landowners who carry out agricultural land management practices within the guidelines that they would know, with the greatest certainty possible, that they would not be in violation of the Endangered Species Act."

These little birds, with their bright cheeks and beautiful songs, remind us why it's so important to protect the wild places that make Texas so special.

To learn more and even listen to them sing, go here.

Currently, other endangered species known to occur in the Brazos River Basin are the Georgetown Salamander, Smalleye and Sharpnose Shiner, Navasota Ladies' Tresses, the Houston Toad, and the Balcones Spike. Learn more about these species here.