Category Archive

By Susan Heath On Monday I headed out to East Matagorda Bay with our new Executive Director, Martin Hagne, and jack of all trades volunteer, Oron Atkins. There wasn’t much wind for a welcome change and we enjoyed relatively calm waters for most of the day. We found that ER & unbanded had a new nest with two eggs. photo … Read More

By Susan Heath On Monday, Amanda and I were joined by Allison Huysman who is working at the Mad Island Marsh Preserve banding station this spring. Things have been a little slow so far this year at the banding station and Allison was up for a day on the water so invited her to come along. It’s always exciting to … Read More

By Susan Heath The wind was too high to go out to East Matagorda Bay on Monday and because I was attending a Loggerhead Shrike Working Group meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, I didn’t have any available days to switch to so we were only able to get out to West Galveston Bay this week. In addition, our faithful photographer … Read More

By Susan Heath On Monday, GCBO shorebird technician Amanda Anderson, Cradle of Texas Master Naturalist Oron Atkins, and I headed out to East Matagorda Bay to check on the pairs there. The good folks at the Texas Mid-Coast National Wildlife Refuge are letting us use their boat for this monitoring and for that we thank them very much! To monitor … Read More

By Susan Heath Believe it or not, it’s time to start monitoring the American Oystercatchers for nesting activity. This year we’ll be monitoring the birds in West Galveston Bay and East Matagorda Bay once a week. We’ll be putting nanotags on 10 adults and 5 chicks so we can track their movements using our new Motus tower network. This project … Read More

By Susan Heath Well it’s all over folks. The season came to an end today. John Wright, Alan Wilde, Amanda Anderson and I went out today to check on the last remaining chick. We headed straight for South Deer Island to get the business over with first so we could relax for the rest of the survey. The good news … Read More

By Susan Heath Not much happening out there these days. With Captain Tim, Alan Wilde, Amanda Hackney, Brittany Stamps and I made the rounds to check on the oystercatchers. Most pairs were hanging out on their territories sleeping or dining. The tide was too high to find any on reefs so we didn’t get any exciting resights of the non-breeders. … Read More

By Susan Heath Surprise, surprise, surprise! I love late season surprises and we got a big one on Friday. Brittany Stamps, our GCBO summer intern, and I met John Wright and Alan Wilde at John’s house to do another oystercatcher survey. We usually end our surveys in June but this year there were still two pairs incubating nests and one … Read More

By Susan Heath It’s getting hot out there! John Wright escorted Alan Wilde, Rosaleen March, and myself on an oystercatcher tour last Thursday. Most of the birds are done with their nesting activity but we made the entire rounds anyway because it’s fun to see what they are up to and I wanted to make sure there weren’t any more … Read More

By Susan Heath Tim Long, Alan Wilde, and I went out on the 16th to check on the oystercatchers and found some surprises. One piece of good news is that the tide is finally down to a reasonable level. It’s still higher than it’s supposed to be but at least it’s not two feet higher! Now it’s only one foot … Read More

By Susan Heath We had to split our field day between two days because of the weather. We were originally scheduled to go out on Friday, June 3rd but with a weather forecast of 90% chance of rain for most of the day, we moved it back to Wednesday, June 1st.  Even with that switch we had to run from … Read More

By Susan Heath Finally some good news! But…. You’ll have to read the blog to find out what it is! We moved our survey from Wednesday back to Tuesday in response to the weather report. When Tim, Alan, and I started the day it was beautiful. Slight wind, blue sky, calm waters. It was the kind of day that makes … Read More