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Houston Audubon Sanctuaries
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Houston Audubon meets its mission of promoting birds and conservation of their habitat primarily by owning and managing bird sanctuaries. Its land acquisition program began in 1987 with the purchase of land on the Bolivar Peninsula and has grown steadily since then by further purchases and by donations and bequests. Today it owns the following 17 sanctuaries in five counties totaling 3,362 acres.
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Rookery Tree Planting
By Andrew Beck
On Saturday January 30th, Nate and I loaded up our rowboat with over 65 cypress trees and assorted other drought tolerant species and rowed out to the Rookery Island at Smith Oaks Bird Sanctuary to plant. The sky was solid grey and the wind out of the North kept a permanent chill in my bones.
It had been almost 1 year since Winnie and I visited the island for planting and nesting platform improvements.[More]
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| January Work Day
Winnie Burkett
Eleven hardy volunteers showed up to help with trail work in Smith Oaks Saturday January 9, and were treated to a very birdy day. The day started with hundreds of geese flying over. Warblers, kinglets and gnatcatchers were feeding on the ground and were more concerned about finding bugs then the volunteers walking by. [More]
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| Cold on the coast
Winnie Burkett
Ice on the ferry , Bolivar Flats frozen with gulls walking on the ice. Shorebirds feeding around the ice covered oysters in Horseshoe Marsh I wondered how often Avocets see ice. Will be a chilly work day tomorrow.[More]
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| Sapsucker tree
Winnie Burkett
Sapsuckers have been working on a Shumard oak in Boy Scout Woods - the oozing sap is fermenting and attracting a lot of insects. Red Admiral butterflies covered the tree on Monday Nov 2. By Nov 5, many moths, flies and beetles had found the tree.[More]
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| Native Grass Planting in Port Bolivar
By Andrew Beck
Houston Audubon hosted a work day on Halloween next to Ft. Travis Seashore Park, in Port Bolivar, that resulted in planting over 4,000 native grasses including; Marshhay Cordgrass, Brownseed Paspalum, Gulf Cordgrass, Red Lovegrass, Seashore Paspalum, Virginia Dropseed, and Seacoast Bluestem.
Volunteers from Houston Audubon, Galveston Bay Master Naturalists, the Native Plant Society of Texas-Houston and residents of the Bolivar Peninsula planted over 3 acres for a native plant demonstration site to highlight the diversity and
availability of native plants that can be grown on the storm ravaged peninsula.[More]
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