Despite its proximity to the country’s fourth-largest city—The Woodlands is about 30 miles from downtown Houston—south Montgomery County provides a suitable habitat for many native bird species, said Donna Work, a biologist with Texas A&M Forest Service. The forest service owns and administrates W. G. Jones State Forest, a 1,700-acre preserved natural area that crosses both FM 1488 and Hwy. 242 north of The Woodlands.
According to Texas A&M, the forest is recognized by the American Bird Conservancy as one of the country’s most important birding areas in part because it is a habitat for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker as well as being an old-growth pine forest, providing unique ecosystems for a variety of wildlife.
However, the forest is not the only place where birdwatchers can find unusual species nesting or looking for grubs and seeds. Because of the wooded nature of much of The Woodlands area, residents can see unusual species in their own backyards if they look carefully and maintain attractive environments.
“We’re a highly urbanized forest,” Word said. “There is a lot of development going on around us all the time and a little island of habitat. That’s a good thing for the birds to have it there, but there’s a lot of wildlife that travel, so it’s good to have trees or forested travel corridors from one large bit of the forest to the next. Each person in their yard could possibly plant some trees for some of the birds that could handle being in that type of habitat.”
