Well we’re off to a great start! Bob counted 737 raptors on the first day of the count. Broad-winged Hawk 15 Swainson’s Hawk 2 Mississippi Kite 716 Swallow-tailed Kite 4 Other birds included a couple of local Cooper’s Hawks, a local Red-shouldered Hawk, three Magnificent Frigatebirds and lots of White Ibis. Come on down and enjoy the count!
Gulf Coast Bird Observatory: Ensuring a Future for American Oystercatchers in Texas
Sue Heath, Director of Conservation for GCBO, was recently featured in the “Conservation Milestones” section in the American Bird Association’s “Birding” magazine for her groundbreaking work with American Oystercatchers on the Gulf Coast. Read the full article at the link below! It begins on page 60.
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 19
By Susan Heath Well folks, there’s good news and bad news. I was joined on Wednesday, July 3 by Alan Wilde, Amanda Hackney, and my sister Kay Heath to monitor the skimmers and the remaining oystercatcher activity. Unfortunately the weather did not allow us to get much done. I checked the radar when I woke up at 6:00 and there … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 18
By Susan Heath I’m beginning to get a complex about the weather. This season has just been awful with wind and now rain. I wasn’t able to go to Drum Bay on Tuesday to check on the chick there because there were heavy thunderstorms all day. I rescheduled that for Friday in combination with East Matagorda Bay which would mean … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 17
By Susan Heath I had some non-negotiable commitments on Tuesday and Wednesday this week which of course were the two days with the best weather. It was a tossup between Thursday and Friday. Neither looked very good from a wind perspective but Alan and I made a go of it on Friday. It was too rough to go check on … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 16
By Susan Heath On Tuesday, Alan Wilde and I went out to do a reef survey in Bastrop and Drum Bays both of which border parts of Brazoria NWR. The refuge biologist Jennifer Wilson and I have been talking about building some oystercatcher nesting platforms out there because the habitat is so eroded. The refuge doesn’t encompass the small islands … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 15
By Susan Heath Well I thought the wind was over but I was oh so WRONG! We had to change our monitoring day from Wednesday to Tuesday to avoid the high winds and rain from the tropical low that made its way to our area on Tuesday afternoon. Alan was out of town (having a blast in Costa Rica!) so … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 14
By Susan Heath I THINK the crazy winds might be over finally, but that didn’t happen until Thursday and we had to go out to West Galveston Bay on Wednesday in 18 mph winds again. What a drag! I was joined by Alan Wilde, Scott Buckel, and Bev Morrison for a bumpy tour of West Galveston Bay. There were white … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 13
By Susan Heath WIND. That is the defining word for the past week. The wind was blowing 20+ mph every day until Friday so needless to say we couldn’t go out to check on the oystercatchers until Friday. This meant I had to combine two days of work into one because I was scheduled to monitor Black Skimmers and do … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 12
By Susan Heath It was quite a week folks! On Monday John Wright escorted Alan and I and our Experiences Auction winners Jean Booth, Sandy Parker, and Liz Garney around West Galveston Bay in his very nice boat. The weather was beautiful for this excursion and I was very glad we had postponed from the original date which was the … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 11
By Susan Heath Well the weather really messed me up this week. We were supposed to do our American Oystercatcher Experiences Auction trip on Wednesday and on Friday I was supposed to go and count Black Skimmer colonies in West Galveston Bay. On Wednesday the wind was blowing 18 – 20 mph so I had to reschedule the auction trip … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2019: Field Week 10
By Susan Heath Wind, wind, wind. Where does it end? I could go on but I’ll stop there. You get the drift. That’s a boat joke in case you didn’t catch it. There wasn’t an option to change our Wednesday monitoring day so even though the wind was predicted to be 18 mph we made a go of it. Alan … Read More