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Photos courtesy of GCBO staff except where noted.


GCBO Experiences Auction

It's almost time for our Experiences Auction! Mark your calendar for November 15th when bidding will begin and then be sure to check back and see how your bid is doing. The auction will close at 12:00pm (noon) on Friday, December 2nd in conjunction with our holiday sale. We have some oldies but goodies from last year and some exciting new additions. We are sure you can find an exciting trip or adventure for that special someone in your life. Click here for a preview.


GCBO Can't Keep Truckin' Without Your Help

Hello friends of the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory. If you have volunteered for GCBO over the past several years, you know that we are in need of a good field truck. Well good news! We have acquired $10,000 towards the purchase of a used truck, and our good friends at McRee Ford in Dickinson are working to find the best truck for our money.

We need your help though. In order to devote the entire $10,000 toward the purchase of the truck, we need additional funds for insurance and maintenance. We are hoping to raise $3,000 towards these needs in the next two weeks. Can you help us out? The truck will be used to haul equipment for installation of the Motus antennas on the upper and central coasts, to access remote areas for our Beach Nesting Birds Project, to (hopefully) haul a boat for our American Oystercatcher Stewardship Project, and to bring our travel trailer to and from the Smith Point Hawk Watch.

We still need $500 to meet our goal! Can you help us get the rest of the way?

Click Through to Donation Campaign.


Wilson's Plover Chick Resighting

We were thrilled to learn that one of the Wilson's Plover chicks banded this past spring as part of our Beach Nesting Birds project was resighted in El Salvador by a birding group. This chick was hatched at one of four sites being monitored as part of this project - Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary, East Beach in Galveston, Bryan Beach in Brazoria County, or the Matagorda Bay Nature Park in Matagorda County. Since all chicks banded from these locations are marked similarly with a year marker (red) and a location marker (yellow) we don't know for sure which site it came from but we know it came from one of them! What a little traveler this bird is. Banding resightings like this are helping us determine where our breeding Wilson's Plovers spend the non-breeding season.


Visit GCBO at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival

Join GCBO biologist Susan Heath at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival November 2-6. Sue will be staffing the GCBO booth at the Trade Show that is associated with the festival. This year's birding festival promises to be one of the best with great field trips, speakers, workshops, boat trips, and so much more. You just never know what great birds will be found during this event so it pays to be ready! For more information, click on the festival image above for a direct link to the RGVBF website.


Big Pond Motus Antenna Array Installed

On October 11, our first Motus antenna array was installed at the Big Pond unit of the San Bernard NWR. Three antennas were installed 60 feet up on an existing microwave tower by LyondellBasell contractors. This install was coordinated by refuge personnel including Jennifer Wilson, Jennifer Sanchez and Bryar Johnson. Thank you to them for coordinating the install and to LyondellBasell for agreeing to donate the installation and tower rental space, a $9,000 value!

And speaking of Motus antennas, our Quintana antenna array picked up a migrating Sanderling on August 24th that was banded at Nanuit Itillinga (Polar Bear Pass) National Wildlife Area, Bathurst Island, Nunavut, Canada on July 10, 2016!


GCBO Holiday Sale

Friday, December 2
Shop from 10:00 to 5:00pm
299 Hwy 332 West, Lake Jackson

Please join us for our annual Open House & Holiday Sale at our GCBO headquarters in Lake Jackson. Nature gifts for all ages at great prices and some yummy Christmas treats to eat as well. It's a Tax Free Day and members also receive their regular 10% discount on top of that! A savings of 18% while still contributing to bird conservation programming. You can also come by and pay for your Experiences Auction item so you'll be ready to put it under the tree.

 

Can't get by our store? You can still support GCBO while you shop at no cost to you. When you order online from Amazon, please order through Amazon Smile and indicate GCBO as your charity of choice. A percentage of your purchase will be donated to GCBO! For information visit Amazon Smile online.


Land Acquistion Endowment Challenge Grant

photo by Darlene Boucher

GCBO's Land Acquisition Endowment is a sustainable source of funding for the acquisition of vital stopover habitat for migratory birds. Each year for the past several years, the Malcolm C. Damuth Foundation has offered GCBO a gift of $30,000 towards this fund if we can raise $15,000 to match the gift. With your generous help, we have met this challenge and thus we have been offered the challenge again in 2016. With the Foundation grants and your matching funds, our Endowment has grown to $330,677! All earnings from the fund are available for land purchases around the Gulf of Mexico. These earnings have been instrumental in protecting vital habitats.

 

We have raised $4,000 towards our $15,000 goal. Please help us earn that $30,000 by making a contribution today.


GCBO Volunteer Dinner a Hit

We had a full house and everyone had a great time at our volunteer appreciation dinner. The staff and a few generous volunteers prepared pork tamales, venison chili, spinach enchiladas and cornbread. For desert there was coca cola cake, tres leches cake and dump cake. Everyone got their fill of guacamole and chips before dinner was served. We are very happy that everyone had such a great time because we really wanted to give a big THANK YOU to all our volunteers. We couldn't do what we do without YOU. A special thanks to James Heller for being the head cook..We would also like to extend a special thank you to Roxanna Reed and Back Road Beauties for providing the GCBO logo cups for all attendees.


GCBO Wish List

 

Our wish list has shrunk considerably! Thanks to all who donated. There's only a few items left. Can you help us out? Take a look and see if you can donate any of these items. We will be happy to provide you with a tax donation letter for your efforts!. Thanks so much.

  • 40 inch tv or bigger
  • washing machine
  • several loads of crushed concrete ($200 value)
  • stackable plastic chairs for hawk watch (up to 20)

Monthly Bird Banding at GCBO

It's November and the winter birds are here. Last month we caught an Eastern Phoebe, a winter resident at GCBO and the above pictured Gray Catbird a common migrant and wintering bird through our area. Our wintering Buff-bellied Hummingbird has arrived too - maybe we'll catch it in November. Bird banding will be on Saturday, November 19th from 8:00 until noon. Remember, the birds get up early so the earlier you are here the more you'll see. Seeing birds in the hand is a great way to get kids young and old excited about wildlife. See the map on our webpage for directions or use your GPS to take you to 299 Hwy 332 West, Lake Jackson, TX.


  www.gcbo.org | Telephone 979-480-0999 | Contact Us
This e-mail was sent by the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory
299 W. Hwy 332, Lake Jackson, TX  77566

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