By Susan Heath On Wednesday I headed out to the Brazoria Bays for what I hoped would be my last check of the season. While crossing West Galveston Bay to get to the mooring facility, I spotted a strange silhouette on one of the channel markers. As I got closer I saw there was more than one strange silhouette. Brown … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday I headed out to East Matagorda Bay with Heather Lewis, one of our new volunteers. Heather is an instructor at Alvin Community College but back in the day, she did her masters degree on Black Skimmers! Very nice to have another Black Skimmer enthusiast among us! We haven’t seen any skimmers in East Matagorda Bay … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday I headed out to the Brazoria Bays to check on the pairs there. My volunteers fell through again so I went by myself. It’s kind of fun to be out there alone! It reminds me of the scene in On Golden Pond when the kid takes the boat out by himself for the first time. … Read More

By Susan Heath I had to move my Tuesday trip to East Matagorda Bay to Friday because of all the rain. On Thursday, I headed out to West Galveston Bay with Alan Wilde and Trey Barron (TPWD Wildlife Diversity Biologist). The wind was supposed to die down as the day went on so I decided to save Swan Lake for … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday, Taylor B, Taylor S and I headed out to check the birds in the Brazoria Bays. We went to the west end of West Galveston Bay first. The chick at the mooring facility was due to fledge. We found F1A (the male) standing alone in much the same place as he had been the last … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday, Taylor, Taylor and I headed out to East Matagorda Bay. The wind was strong out of the east so we headed down the GIWW from Matagorda all the way to Chinquapin and checked on F8A & unbanded. The tide was higher then I’ve seen it out there this year and they were standing on a … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday, Taylor Bennett, Taylor Snyder, Elena Duran and I headed out to check on the birds in the Brazoria Bays. We went to the west end of West Galveston Bay first to check the pair at the mooring facility. When we first arrived, we didn’t see any oystercatchers and I was afraid the nest had failed … Read More

By Susan Heath On Monday I headed out to West Galveston Bay with Alan Wilde, a couple of friends of mine, Barbara Pankratz and Crystal Ledezma and Elena Duran, the TAMU graduate student who is taking blood and feather samples from some of our birds. Although the forecast called for partly sunny it was cloudy and a bit chilly. We … Read More

By Susan Heath On Monday, Taylor Bennett and I headed out to check the pairs in the Brazoria Bays. At the mooring facility in West Galveston Bay we found F2A there alone and the eggs were gone. He was acting very upset at our presence so I’m sure he was guarding a chick or two but we didn’t linger to … Read More

By Susan Heath It was too windy to go out to East Matagorda Bay on Tuesday and I was tied up on Wednesday with another project so we just had to skip it. Hopefully we can go next week. Alan and I headed out to West Galveston Bay on Thursday. The Tiki Channel pair was not present so we went … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday, Taylor, Taylor and I headed out to check the birds in the Brazoria Bays. It was windy and was only going to get worse so we didn’t dawdle. We left from the boat ramp on Bastrop Bayou near Demi John and went out Bastrop Bayou to the GIWW and then headed east to West Galveston … Read More

By Susan Heath On Monday, Taylor, Taylor and I headed back to East Matagorda Bay. Instead of leaving from the Sargent boat ramp, we drove to Matagorda and left from there. The boat ramp is better and the ride on the water is shorter. The wind was coming from the north so we went down the GIWW into the wind … Read More