By Rebecca Bracken

Weather has not been our friend this year!  I hope you’re reading this blog post while inside and dry, watching the rain through your window.  We’ve continued to battle heavy windows almost weekly at one of our sites, and sadly had another minor boat issue.  But we’ve still had a lot of fun out and about when we’ve been able to get out to our sites.  We also had a wonderful experience auction trip out to West Galveston with Isabel, Juliet, and Joshua – Isabel and Juliet help out with the bird banding at our office on the 3rd Saturday of every month, so it was great to get them out on the boat and see our other research ventures!

Rebecca, Alan Wilde, volunteers Sarah Belles (American Bird Conservancy), Chris Schnurbusch and Julia Juarez (GCBO interns), Caleb Clarkson (GCBO Beach-nesting Bird Technician), Sheryl Travis (GCBO RV host), and Texas A&M PhD student Meredith Grimshaw have all been out and about!

We finally made it to Swan Lake and Scenic Galveston, north of the Galveston causeway after many weeks of high winds that prevented us from being able to safely get our boat up there.  Sue and I had found nests for LR and unbanded, and 20 and unbanded, and we needed to check on them.  Thankfully, 20 and unbanded had a nice, healthy chick, and we were able to band it!  Sadly, LR’s nest appeared to have failed.

In Swan Lake, we really aren’t sure what all has been going on.  We couldn’t get to some of the islands because of a fishing tournament!  Wade-fisherman were all around the islands, and we didn’t want to run them over.  However, we suspected 11 and unbanded had a nest, but we are pretty sure it failed cause they have both been spending time on the breakwaters away from their territory.

K7 and unbanded, and 39 and unbanded, haven’t been seen too often, and generally when we’ve found them, they’ve all been on the breakwaters.  There was one day where 39 came in yelling at us, but we never found a nest or chicks.  It’s very possible they were up to something, but given the high tides we’ve had, we think it didn’t make it.  The Black Skimmers nesting on that island also overwashed.  On the next island over, we think X3 was kicked out in May because there have been other oystercatchers hanging out in that territory but X3 stopped making appearances.  We’ll need to investigate further next year.

In case you haven’t seen the social media posts or heard from friends, Struve Luci, an island off of Galveston Island that is home to 5 oystercatcher pairs and a Black Skimmer colony, has really taken a hit this year.  We’ve had a lot of repeated disturbance on that island – note to fisherman, please fish responsibly!  Stay off of and away from posted islands.  LT and JA, and YK and unbanded, both managed to fledge a chick this year (yay!), but E5A’s nest failed before hatching.  We are now seeing all the pairs hanging out on the docks, indicating the end of their breeding season.

The Jigsaw oystercatchers are a mystery bunch for us this year.  YE and unbanded had a nest that we thought hatched, but we never saw a chick, fledged or not, so we’re not sure.  There’s a very large tern colony on that island, so we try to stay off of it once they are nesting.  It’s also incredibly loud and stinky!  We never found a nest for X2 and W2Y; they were always feeding along the reef when we came by.

Gangs Bayou was completely under water a few weeks ago, but we did find a new nest for A4A!  1 egg again.  I’m really hoping it survives this storm, but that area floods so easily that I’m not super optimistic.  They may surprise us though!  Isabel and Juliet were able to go up on the island with me to see the nest, and got to see plenty of Laughing Gull chicks as well!

On South Deer, A1A and unbanded’s nest appears to have failed; we saw them on the Gangs Bayou breakwater, and they would never leave a chick.  Shockingly, A5A and mate popped up a few weeks ago, and were carrying food up to the grass!  No clue where they nested, but they were clearly feeding a chick.  We took a look last week to see if we could find it; no dice, but we know it’s there somewhere.

Y7 and unbanded are moving around quite a bit, and aren’t expected to nest again.  F1A and E2A have disappeared again.  The tern colony at their territory is doing really well though, lots of chicks!

On North Deer, C1A and unbanded had one very healthy chick!  We were able to catch and band it Y3T; it was Meredith’s first oystercatcher chick – always exciting!  Really glad that pair had a chick this year.

YM and E8A finally made an appearance last week, but without a chick.  Their beach has been overrun with pelicans, ibises, and egrets for quite some time now.

On Marker 52, we believe JJ and unbanded’s nest failed, as did JC and U5Y’s nest.  We still haven’t found J6 and UF, not even on their known feeding sites.  There has been a single bird hanging out on Marker 52, a little bit down from JJ’s territory, but it seems to be on its own and is not one of the birds that is known to breed there.  Maybe there will be a new pair there next year?

FR is still keeping his chick close, but it’s a great flyer!  FR lets us know that he is still displeased with us, and will coming flying towards us the moment he sees our boat.

On the Tiki Spoil island, E4A and X3Y’s chick fledged.  Y2 and W1W’s nest did hatch (1 adorable chick!), but we haven’t seen them since.  We couldn’t make it out on the possible chick banding day, so we’ll need to keep looking to see if they moved to another part of the island.

East Matagorda is just about wrapped up for the season.  LF and M4’s chick fledged!  25 and unbanded had one chick that we caught and banded Y2T.  We’re really happy they finished earlier in the season this year – it won’t be as hot and they won’t have to worry about the skimmers!

This breeding season is finishing pretty early this year, and sadly this storm is not going to help.  We’ll be back out as soon as we can to see if any oystercatchers will try again, but more than likely we’ll have to wait until next year!

If you’d like to join us on a monitoring adventure, keep an eye out for this year’s Experience Auction!  Hopping on our boat for a day gives you the chance to get up close and personal with American Oystercatchers and other waterbirds nesting in our area, as well as a chance to talk with us about our research programs, outcomes of monitoring, and island restoration projects being completed by our partners.  We love showing off what we do!

 

If you like oystercatchers and you want to support this project, you can make a donation (thank you!) on our website here. And how could anyone not like oystercatchers! You can also adopt a pair of oystercatchers to support this project if you’d like. If you adopt a pair, you will receive an adoption certificate for your birds and I will update you monthly on their progress throughout the breeding season. All adoption funds will be used to fund our work for the oystercatchers.

Current Stats for upper Texas coast from Swan Lake to East Matagorda Bay: 1 nest being incubated, 12 failed nests, 0 nests with unfledged chicks, 3 nest with undetermined status, 10 chicks fledged

Note: All trapping and banding for this project is in accordance with federal and state permits issued to Rebecca Bracken, GCBO Conservation Research Director. Bird handling by volunteers is only permitted in the presence of Rebecca Bracken or Susan Heath and volunteers are trained in proper bird handling techniques.