By Susan Heath Alan and I were joined by one of GCBO’s RV volunteers, Bill Rose, this week. We needed some extra muscle to handle reinstalling a sign on Struve Luci. The truck thermometer read 49 when I backed the boat trailer into the water. For me that is a big BRRRRR! It wasn’t too windy though so not too … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2022: Week of February 14, 2022
By Susan Heath Alan and I went back out to check on the oystercatchers on Tuesday this week. We had planned to go Wednesday but the weather had other ideas so Tuesday it was. It’s still pretty slow out there but all the pairs are on territory and many are scraping so things should pick up soon. Amazingly all the … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2022: Week of January 31, 2022
By Susan Heath It’s time! They oystercatchers have begun to nest and we’ve checked on them a couple of times. We went out the West Galveston Bay on January 13 to see if any pairs had changed. Amazingly they were all the same for the ones that were present. Then on January 27, we went back and found the first … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of August 30, 2021
By Susan Heath Well it was quite a day. I managed to forget my binoculars so we stopped by Alan’s house on the way out to Jones Bay and I borrowed a pair. So nice to have a volunteer living right on the bay! We found zero oystercatchers in Jones Bay and not much else either. When we went along … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of August 23, 2021
By Susan Heath I was on vacation last week so the oystercatchers had to live without me. I’m sure they enjoyed the week off! Other than the last oystercatcher chick and checking on the skimmers there really isn’t much to do out there this time of year. Alan and I were joined by John Wright this week. We headed out … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of August 9, 2021
By Susan Heath This week the skies were clear on Thursday for our check of West Galveston Bay. Alan and I were accompanied by GCBO’s current RV hosts, Sonny Brannon and Peggy Hall. They have been a great help around GCBO so I wanted to show them a little bit about what happens out in the field on a research … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of August 2, 2021
By Susan Heath It’s always an adventure on the bay! On Wednesday, Alan and I had planned to go out and check on everybody, but on Tuesday the forecast looked not so good. By Wednesday morning the chance of rain in Galveston was down to 15% most of the day even though the radar looked like this. We decided to … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of July 26, 2021
By Susan Heath Well it was quite a day on Thursday. I headed out towards Galveston as usual and got about 6 miles from Hitchcock on FM 2004 and traffic came to an all stop. I could see flashing lights ahead but very few cars were turning around so I figured it was going to get cleared soon. After 30 … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of July 19, 2021
By Susan Heath This week was more about skimmers than oystercatchers. I assembled a team to band the skimmer chicks on Struve Luci so Alan and I were accompanied by Taylor Bennett (GCBO Coastal Biologist), Sarah Belles (GCBO intern), and Elena Iacono (TAMU grad student). Elena is working on her PhD and she is going to run a bunch of … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of July 12, 2021
By Susan Heath Well I’m happy to say that it finally stopped raining! Mostly any way. Alan and I headed out on Thursday accompanied by Elizabeth and Elisha Hehir, graduate students at the University of Houston Clear Lake. They are very interested in birds and are going to take over maintaining one of my Motus towers. Yay! Thank you Elizabeth … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of July 5, 2021
By Susan Heath Has anyone started building an ark yet? If so, can I give you a couple birds to take along? Sheesh. The rain has been unrelenting. We were scheduled to go out on Thursday but we switched it to Friday because the weather forecast looked slightly better. Fortunately, Alan was on the ball and called me Thursday morning … Read More
Oystercatcher Diaries 2021: Week of June 28, 2021
By Susan Heath Well the weather was beautiful when Alan and I headed out to West Galveston Bay on Thursday. There wasn’t much wind so the water was calm and the thunderstorms hadn’t started building up yet. We didn’t really need to go to Swan Lake because the pairs up there are all done but I like to get a … Read More