GCBO Receives Funds for Prairie

With help from the Community Foundation of Brazoria County, GCBO received an $18,000 grant from ConocoPhillips to support the rescue of 3,000 square feet of prairie sod from the 100-acre Saum's Prairie in western Harris County.  This area was one of the best patches of pristine prairie left in Houston and represented the region's characteristic landscape that once spread a thousand square miles between the Brazos River and Houston.  This prairie was going to be lost to development so Houston Audubon and The Katy Prairie Conservancy organized a prairie rescue effort.  GCBO was very happy to be able to help.  Our little prairie plot is already sprouting many beautiful flowers this spring.  We hope to use it to educate the public about the value of prairie to grassland bird species.  Pictured above are from left to right Cecilia Riley, Executive Director, GCBO, Barbara Monical, Chairman of the Board for Community Foundation of Brazoria County, Susan Heath, Avian Conservation Biologist, GCBO, Vicki Kirby, Executive Director, Community Foundation of Brazoria County, and Ric Bennett, VP of Development, Community Foundation of Brazoria County.

Garden Club Spruces Up GCBO's Front Garden

The Lake Jackson Garden Club adopted GCBO's front garden and in March they came out to further their efforts.  The garden looks great with new mulch and a few new flowering plants.  We really appreciate their efforts to beautify our front entrance!  If you would like to share your love of gardening with GCBO, we have several other beds in need of adoption.  Contact Cecilia for more information.

Board Trip to Mad Island Marsh

On March 7th, members of the GCBO staff and board ventured to Matagorda County to visit Mad Island Marsh, one of our site partners.  Cathy Wakefield from The Nature Conservancy graciously showed us around as much of the 7,000 acres as possible in an afternoon.  There were plenty of birds to keep us entertained including Burrowing Owl, Peregrine Falcon, White-tailed Hawk, Le Conte's Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow, and a singing Seaside Sparrow.  We had lunch at TNC's fantastic education facility on the marsh.  Our board president, Jan Cato, educated all of us on the taste of Yucca flower petals so we all tried some for dessert.  Not bad!  Future board visits to site partners are in the planning stages.  If you are a site partner and would like to host a visit, please let Sue know.

Quintana Spring Migration Fling

This spring we are hosting a kiosk at Quintana to provide information, host beginning birder walks, and accept donations towards habitat enhancement following Hurricane Ike.  We will also have a few items for sale that birders can't do without.  GCBO staff and volunteers will be at the kiosk from 12:00 to 4:00pm every day in April.  Please stop by and visit with us! 

Join Us For Bird Banding

Join us from 8:00 until noon on Saturday, April 11th (note the date change) for our monthly bird banding session.  Watch as Robert & Kay Lookingbill band the birds and explain how to determine the species, age, and sex of birds in the hand.  Migrants ought to be moving through during this time.  Come out and see what surprises are in store for us. This is a great way to get kids excited about wildlife, but all ages are welcome.  See the map on our webpage for directions.  Note that mapquest and googlemaps will not guide you to the right place using our address.

Bring on the Owls!

As mentioned in a previous edition of our e-news, Bob Woods built and donated a Barred Owl box to GCBO.  Other tasks have kept us so busy we didn't have time to install it, but this past week our number one volunteer, Mike Gray, was finally able to put it up at our Lake Jackson sanctuary.  Dedicated volunteer Leon Skeete assisted and between the two of them, several nest boxes are available for our bluebirds too.  We will be monitoring it to see "who" decides to use it.  We'll keep you posted.