Bob reports 12 migrating raptors today. Swallow-tailed Kite 12 Other birds include Least Tern, 3 Black Terns, and lots of Purple Martins. There were a few rain showers hanging around but 12 Swallow-tailed Kites isn’t bad!
Smith Point Hawk Watch 8/18/21 (7 raptors)
Bob reports 7 migrating raptors today. Swallow-tailed Kite 6 Swainson’s Hawk 1 Lots of rain showers in the area retarded the count but its nice to have so many Swallow-tailed Kites! Sarah Harrison and Linda Hoffman helped out today.
Smith Point Hawk Watch 8/17/21 (5 raptors)
Bob reports 5 migrating raptors today. Mississippi Kite 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk 1 Cooper’s Hawk 1 Broad-winged Hawk 2 Other birds included 3 Olive-sided Flycatchers. No visitor’s today. Bob is lonely y’all!
Smith Point Hawk Watch 8/15/21 & 8/16/21
Smith Point returns! The first day was great. 8/15/21 Swallow-tailed Kite 13 Mississippi Kite 13 Coopers Hawk 3 Red-shouldered Hawk 2 Broad-winged Hawk 26 Swainson’s Hawk 18 Red-tailed Hawk 3 Other birds of note: 12 white pelicans, 260 Anhinga, 31 Wood Storks, and 3 Magnificent Frigatebirds. Sarah Harrison and Marvin Masters helped out. 8/16/21 Swallow-tailed Kite 9 Mississippi Kite 17 … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of August 9, 2021
By Susan Heath This week the skies were clear on Thursday for our check of West Galveston Bay. Alan and I were accompanied by GCBO’s current RV hosts, Sonny Brannon and Peggy Hall. They have been a great help around GCBO so I wanted to show them a little bit about what happens out in the field on a research … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of August 2, 2021
By Susan Heath It’s always an adventure on the bay! On Wednesday, Alan and I had planned to go out and check on everybody, but on Tuesday the forecast looked not so good. By Wednesday morning the chance of rain in Galveston was down to 15% most of the day even though the radar looked like this. We decided to … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of July 26, 2021
By Susan Heath Well it was quite a day on Thursday. I headed out towards Galveston as usual and got about 6 miles from Hitchcock on FM 2004 and traffic came to an all stop. I could see flashing lights ahead but very few cars were turning around so I figured it was going to get cleared soon. After 30 … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of July 19, 2021
By Susan Heath This week was more about skimmers than oystercatchers. I assembled a team to band the skimmer chicks on Struve Luci so Alan and I were accompanied by Taylor Bennett (GCBO Coastal Biologist), Sarah Belles (GCBO intern), and Elena Iacono (TAMU grad student). Elena is working on her PhD and she is going to run a bunch of … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of July 12, 2021
By Susan Heath Well I’m happy to say that it finally stopped raining! Mostly any way. Alan and I headed out on Thursday accompanied by Elizabeth and Elisha Hehir, graduate students at the University of Houston Clear Lake. They are very interested in birds and are going to take over maintaining one of my Motus towers. Yay! Thank you Elizabeth … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of July 5, 2021
By Susan Heath Has anyone started building an ark yet? If so, can I give you a couple birds to take along? Sheesh. The rain has been unrelenting. We were scheduled to go out on Thursday but we switched it to Friday because the weather forecast looked slightly better. Fortunately, Alan was on the ball and called me Thursday morning … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of June 28, 2021
By Susan Heath Well the weather was beautiful when Alan and I headed out to West Galveston Bay on Thursday. There wasn’t much wind so the water was calm and the thunderstorms hadn’t started building up yet. We didn’t really need to go to Swan Lake because the pairs up there are all done but I like to get a … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of June 21, 2021
By Susan Heath On Friday I headed out to West Galveston Bay with Alan. We got a late start because the GCBO truck died when I got about 2 miles down the road. Martin came to get me and the boat and took us back to GCBO where I hooked the boat up to my personal truck and got on … Read More