High Island

As part of an early birthday celebration, I've gone down to Galveston. Jane and I headed over yesterday to bird at High Island. Now, I've been to High Island before, but never to bird. Now the name "High Island" is a misnomer - it is not an island. Rather on the flat Texas coastal plains, High Island rides higher than the surrounding land due to an uplifted salt dome. The vegetation is different - trees and wooded rather than coastal grasses - so in some ways an island - and certainly when the sea was higher it would have been an island.

But High Island is a perfect rest stop for migrating birds who have just completed crossing the Gulf of Mexico in the spring as well as a rest stop to be ready to travel south in the fall. Many of the fall migrants have been buffeted by the strong winds of cold fronts and need that chance to recover before crossing the gulf where there are not any places to perch.

In true birder fashion, Jane and I kept a record of the birds we saw along the way and throughout our birding - 24 species today. Boy Scout Woods was quiet. A brown thrasher had been reported at the entry - and we found him doing his thrasher thing on the woodland floor. One of the pond, marshy areas gave us common moorhens, turkey vultures, and a crested caracara attacking the vultures. Tons of redwing blackbirds, but I had to ask myself - where were the girls? I kept seeing the beautiful black ones with the red wing patches (and some had yellow - I've got to check on the tricolored blackbirds I remember), but the females are drab - and I sure was not seeing them. Cardinals were the most common bird as we walked through the thickets.

We made it over to the Smith site near sunset. One of the observation areas was great because the cormorants, snowy egrets, white ibises, and roseate spoonbills flew right over us. We did not make it to the rookery - so, yes, at some point, I've got to go back.