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Photos courtesy of GCBO staff and The Raptor Project. November 2008 November is En-Raptor-Ed Month
This November 15th, the GCBO will host our third En-Raptor-Ed fundraiser at the Kinkaid School in Houston, TX. We hope you will make every effort to attend because you'll be in for a really special treat. The stars of the event will be the raptors from the Raptor Project. Jonathon Wood will take us on a wilderness expedition with his raptor entourage which includes live birds of prey from every habitat on the planet: Arctic, Desert, Rainforest, Wetland, Prairie, Woodland, and Tundra. Put this date on your calendar now! Come see some of the most magnificent birds on earth and enjoy a delicious lunch for your contribution of $100 per person. Please call our office at 979-480-0999 to purchase your ticket and check our website for more information.
GCBO Bird Banding Nets Magnificent Hummingbird
On October 18th, Robert and Kay Lookingbill, our longtime research associates and bird banders, set up their nets for our regularly scheduled bird banding day. On the first net run, Robert discovered a large hummingbird that dwarfed the Ruby-throats in one of the nets. Back at the banding table, Kay and Robert identified it as a hatch-year male Magnificent Hummingbird, a bird usually found in the western half of the U.S. Further research revealed that this is the eastern-most record for this species in the state of Texas. This bird had not been seen at any of the GCBO feeders so no one knew it was here. Incredibly, it showed up three days later in the Lookingbill's yard about 3 miles away and continues to be seen sporadically feeding on their giant turkscap flowers.
Project Prairie
Birds Report Published
GCBO and TPWD jointly organized a citizen
science project known as Project Prairie Birds several years ago. This project was designed to assess the status
of wintering grassland birds on the Upper Texas Coast and
involved the work of over 100 volunteers. Grassland birds
have some of the worst population declines of all North American
birds and because they usually skulk in the grass, they are
often undercounted on Christmas Bird Counts (CBCs). Of the
many positive results from the study, perhaps the most important
was the development of a new methodology for counting grassland
species that are under-represented in CBC data. The
results from this study were published in the latest Bulletin of
the Texas Ornithological Society (September 2008) and can be
viewed on the GCBO website
here. Winter Hummingbird Season is Here
Our capture of
the Magnificent Hummingbird alerts us to remind everyone that it's winter
hummingbird season. Leave your hummingbird feeders out and you may get a
special winter guest in any one of 10 or more species of western hummingbirds
that come east during the winter. The eastern U.S. regularly gets
Black-chinned, Rufous, Allen's, Calliope, Broad-tailed, Buff-bellied, and Anna's
Hummingbirds during the winter months. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are, in
fact, quite rare in the U.S. during winter! If you are lucky enough to
have one of these special guests at your house, let us know and we will find
someone to come and band your bird so we can track its migration path and
hopefully document its return to your house next winter. In Florida, banders have documented a Rufous Hummingbird returning to the same neighborhood
for seven winters in a row! Native Plant of the Month
American beauty berry (Callicarpa americana) is widespread across the mid-Atlantic and southeastern U.S. It grows in a variety of wooded habitats but prefers moist areas. It is a large understory shrub that is useful as a screen in wooded locations or under shade trees. It typically grows 3-5 ft. tall but can reach 9 ft. if conditions are favorable. It produces small pink flowers in dense clusters from May through July but its most striking feature is the clusters of glossy, iridescent-purple fruit which hug the branches in the fall. These fruits are important foods for many species of birds, particularly the Northern Bobwhite which has seen precipitous population declines over the last 20 years. It is available in nurseries but can also be grown from softwood tip cuttings or from seed. American beauty berry is a good native plant alternative for the non-native Viburnams (linden arrowwood, nannyberry, Japanese snowball, and Siebold's arrowwood) and the lilac chastetree (Vitex agnus-castus). |
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| www.gcbo.org | Telephone 979-480-0999 | Contact Us |
103 W. Hwy 332, Lake Jackson, TX 77566
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