Advertisement
Published: April 26th 2012
Edit Blog Post
Part 2--Rayene, LA to High Island, TX
Stopped at the Texas welcome center and loaded up on booklets and maps of the Galveston area. Found our way, now on Interstate 10, to a cut off south on highway 146 along the Gulf Coast and through several small Texas City and other resort towns to Galveston Island and Jamaica Beach and the RV Park where we knew there were full hook-ups and at a fairly reasonable rate.
As we maneuvered into a spot in the RV park, we saw a flock of very different looking ducks in the next door field. After looking through our bird books, we ID’d them as black-bellied whistling ducks. We thought we had a find, only to learn that they have become the same sort of nuisances on the Island as the Canada Geese have become in Atlanta---sure are pretty though!
In the morning, we drove back to Galveston proper to pick up our registration material for the 4 day FeatherFest conference. We had signed up for an afternoon field trip looking at shorebirds, so hung around downtown until we were ready to board the bus out to some wetlands and the
Gulf shore. We had field trips scheduled for the next days both morning and afternoon.
In all, we saw over 63 species of birds, most of them shorebirds. One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the home of a significant birder who lives in a house he built down in the trees with everything built to facilitate bird watching. We sat in his living room with people from as far away as New Zealand and watched out of his windows as various songbirds came to his trees and water pool. We have been getting weekly pdf files of pictures of birds and trips he has taken in Alaska and So. America for over two years, so it was really special for us to finally meet him and his new wife.
Why is Galveston and High Island so great for birding?? It has to do with the migration of the birds and the pattern of the migration. Songbirds and others stage in the spring on the Yucatan Peninsula and then fly across the Gulf of Mexico. They then scatter north over the US and Canada to nest and raise their young. The first land with
water and food after this treacherous trek is the Texas Coast. If the winds are strong, giving them a headwind crossing the Gulf, they will continue past the coast and head further inland. This was what was happening for the 4 days of the festival—very few songbirds were spotted.
Sunday afternoon on our way to High Island, we took a driving tour of the Victorian houses in old Galveston. We were really fascinated by the designs on various wood panels and how different these houses were from many of the other ones that we have seen in the past. We happened upon them by chance when following the “Tree Sculpture Trail,” which are a series of carvings made from the old trees in their yards that were devastated in the last hurricane.
On Monday, we had a strong thunderstorm and lots of rain. We hunkered down in Rosie and declared a “down day”; however, many of the birders said that during a storm is the best time to see the birds as they quickly drop to find shelter. We decided we were not that dedicated birders and voted not to stand in the pouring rain and lightening.
With change in wind pattern, Tuesday brought some songbirds to High Island that we had never seen---bright colored indigo and painted buntings and rose-breasted grosbeaks. Also some orioles were spotted. All in all, it was a very pleasant and interesting side trip. Ending mileage was 23085 in Winnie, TX where we stopped at the library to check and send e-mail, got a few groceries, and had lunch at a roadside taqueria stand next to the library.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.488s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 53; dbt: 0.1484s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb