Notes from the Coast (Update)

Following up on Friday's post regarding the post-Ike status of bird sanctuaries on Bolivar Peninsula.

There was a new (and much more optimistic) report this morning on the TexBirds listserv from the Houston Audubon Society's Sanctuary Manager, Winnie Burkett:

Bolivar Flats has been absolutely spectacular the last couple of days. Thousands of avocets and peeps — with hundreds of willets, snowys, White Pelicans and Marbled Godwits make for a nice show. There are nice numbers of other birds too, but no dowichers. I haven't seen dowichers there since Ike and wonder what food they like has disappeared. Birds are still best viewed from the North Jetty, you also might have an opportunity to see the 2 Peregrines who sit on the Coast Guard tower, a block north of the jetty, they were screeching at each other on Thursday and whenever they rearranged where they were sitting all the shorebirds would get up to.

There were Black-bellied Plovers, Sanderlings and 14 Knots on the beach north of Rettilon Rd. This is progress as it has been a while since there were any birds feeding on the beach. The flock of scaup just off the beach has grown and may include other things but I didn't have time to scope it out.

There are now a couple of restaurants open on the Bolivar Peninsula. La Playita in Port Bolivar has reopened and there is a new restaurant Coconuts in Crystal Beach I hear that Stingaree is also open too. The Grocery Store in Crystal Beach opened last week.

Yesterday Claybottom Pond at High Island was full of birds . 130 Spoonbills, 30 Black-crowned Night Herons, Snowys, Great Egrets and several hundred White Ibis all just roosting on the north side of the pond out of the wind. We counted 35 alligators including some pretty big ones. Previously the most gators I have counted at one time was 15, but with fresh water in such a short supply I guess others have moved in.

50+ volunteers worked on the woods this weekend and it definitely getting easier to see birds on the ground. They were also removing Chinese privet and replacing it with native trees and shrubs. Wayne Nicholas and family worked on the photo blind in Boy Scout Woods, which definitely needed work. What would we do without volunteers????

Thanks for the update, Winnie!

Coastal Texas Recovery Update

So it's been right at five months since Hurricane Ike hit the Texas coast, and with spring migrations just around the corner I've been wondering about how things are looking at the hard-hit bird sanctuaries on Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula.

And as often happens, the answer came along before I even have a chance to voice the question. Last weekend, two members of the TexBirds listserv posted their recent observations from the Bolivar Flats area.

First came this report from Winnie Burkett (who is the Sanctuary Manager for the Houston Audubon Society):

We have been working at Bolivar Flats a lot lately, getting the last run on debris, (no we haven't got it all just all that we will get) getting some of the fences rebuilt and starting to rebuild the vehicular barrier. There have been very few birds on the beach and that started me thinking about why. I looked at the vehicular barrier poles that are left and it hit me "the sand is gone". Over 4 feet of sand was pushed inland and I think all the invertebrates that the birds ate were in that sand. The larva of most coastal invertebrates are mobile so I am sure they will get reestablished it will be interesting to see how long it takes. The birds are still out there but hard to see as they are WAY out there.
Read the rest of Winnie's report...

This post was quickly followed up by some even more detailed observations from Joseph Kennedy. He not only gave a good report on what birds can currently be seen in the area, but also delved into some of the related effects from the storm on native trees, plant fertilization and the local honey bee population.

Winnie's observations closely agree with mine. I have been out there twice now trying to count the evidence of worm/clam availability for the birds. By coincidence, I had taken many pictures of the worm and clam mounds etc just before Ike and have a baseline. I was really unable to find enough evidence of life to take any pictures. Creature holes are far apart. Shorebirds mainly eat little things but if there are no things a little bigger there [are] probably no little things too.

The birds I have seen have been picking rather than probing. They are more nervous and spend much more time moving around looking for a feeding patch.
Read the rest of Joe's report...

If you are the least bit interested in one of the most important stopovers along the Gulf Coast for migrating shorebirds, I urge you to read these two posts. They give a good overview of the current situation in the area and on the affects the hurricane damage may have for the near future.

There are also a few more reports and observations on the status of Bolivar Peninsula from Audubon members on the January Bolivar Bird Count page.

'Twas the Night before Ike

(SkyWatch Friday - 9/26/08)

The day before Hurricane Ike arrived — just two short weeks ago — we were starting to wonder if he was really coming our way or not. The skies had been clear and beautiful all day long, with hardly a breeze to stir the leaves in the trees overhanging our back yard. It was simply another typical hot Texas summer day.

Then about an hour before dark, the clouds began moving in. As we sat around the kitchen table after dinner, this was the stunning view we enjoyed as the sun slowly set.

(Click any image to enlarge)

Little did we know just how much power and destruction those painted clouds foretold for the rest of the night. (Whoever said, "Red sky at morning, sailor take warning; red sky at night, sailor's delight," hadn't taken hurricanes into consideration!)

Displaced by the Storm

Pictures of the destruction to homes and businesses caused by Hurricane Ike have been all over the local news and the internet. Many people were displaced by the storm, and some are still waiting to return to houses and property that were flooded or even destroyed by the storm.

But there were others who were involuntarily displaced from their homes by the storm — some that most people haven't even thought of as yet.


Last week as I was driving through some of the farmland near our home, 80-90 miles inland from the coast, I was surprised at the number of coastal and wetland birds I spotted. Several times I looked up at the sound of seagulls crying overhead, seemingly lost with the absence of sand and waves.

There were also many unusual scenes of egrets and ibises, wading through water still standing in fields that were flooded by the storm.


The majority of this group appeared to be cattle egrets (Bubulcus ibis — possibly immature, with yellow beaks and dark legs), which are common to the area; however, cattle egrets are not normally waders like the other egrets and herons found in this region, so I'm not positive I have identified them correctly.


Mixing in with these smaller egrets were at least three young roseate spoonbills (Ajaia ajaja), with their white plumage just starting to turn pink. This is the first time I have ever seen spoonbills this far inland or away from the coast or marshes.


A neighboring field hosted yet another pair of spoonbills, along with a half dozen or so of what I believe were snowy egrets (Leucophoyx thula — black bills, yellow around the eyes, black legs and yellow feet). They were fun to watch, appearing to dance as they walked through the watery grass, shaking a foot from time to time as they stepped gracefully forward.



In two fields I saw the much larger common egret (Casmerodius albus), towering over and yet standing apart from their much smaller cousins.


I spotted several dark forms mixed in with the fields of white waders, but at first couldn't tell what they were. Finally, just before I got back to town, I found a group much closer to the road and was able to spot the telltale downward curve of ibises.


The brown backs and wings, white undersides and mottled necks and heads mark these as immature ibises, although I can't say for certain whether these are white (Eudocimus albus) or scarlet (Eudocimus ruber) ibises.


White ibises are much more common along the Texas gulf coast, and I expect that is what these young birds were. However, I have heard of spottings of scarlet ibises in the coastal marshes near Sabine Lake, near the Texas-Louisiana border, or along the Bolivar Peninsula (just north of Galveston Island), so I suppose it is possible after a storm like Ike that those may have been blown a bit wayward.


In the days immediately following the hurricane's passage through the area, I found myself reading and re-reading Kenn Kaufman's column in the latest issue of Bird Watcher's Digest. He wrote of a recent visit to Galveston Island, and of the changes that have happened there over a number of years with regards to the human disruptions that have so affected bird habitats along the Texas coast. And with the limited space that has now been set aside for bird and wildlife habitation in this area, I wonder what sort of affect such a monstrous — if entirely natural — disruption such as Ike will prove to have on the birds of this region.

Surviving the Storm

As I mentioned before, we were very fortunate during the passage of Hurricane Ike. Although we lost utility services, we did not suffer any serious damage and were never forced to leave our house.

I can't express how proud I am of Cat and Cowboy, although I have done my best to tell them several times over the past week. They were patient, helpful, well-behaved and extremely accommodating as we all tried to cope with both the lack of utilities and our house guests. As Mom reminded me numerous times over the weekend, "They're good kids!"

The kids shared Cowboy's room while Mom and her feline companion took over Cat's. Both kids came and piled in bed with us during the worst of the storm, which made for a crowded bunk, but we weren't sleeping much that night anyways. Other than that, they did extraordinarily well sharing a room — they treated it more like an extended slumber party than a major annoyance.

While the power was off and the rain continued, we played countless rounds of Scrabble Junior, Boggle and "Gold Fish" (Cowboy's name for Go Fish, the only card game they will both agree upon). We all took turns working on a massive jigsaw puzzle that took three days to finally complete. And I got both kids hooked on what were my very favorite books as a kid: The Three Investigators series of juvenile detective novels. Cat finished the first book in a little over 24 hours, and Cowboy then picked it up and started with an intensity I have never seen in him toward reading. He's already almost halfway through it, even though the distractions of cartoons and video games have resurfaced with the electricity. Cat is almost finished with book number two and has already staked her claim on the next one in the series.

Mom did surprisingly well, cooped up in a strange environment with four extra people (including two energetic kids) and no power or running water. She is used to being on her own most of the time, and spending an hour or two with the kids is often enough to wear her down. I was amazed at how well she coped, and how much she seemed to enjoy most of the time spent together. The kids were patient, eager to help, and yet subdued when necessary, and they spent quite a bit of time with their "Nana." They took her for walks around the neighborhood after the storms left the area; she spent time with them at the piano, offering helpful suggestions as they practiced; and they took several opportunities to talk to her about school and life in general.

One of the things Mom did when she needed to get away from the hubbub of "family time" was to sneak down the darkened hallway and sit down at the piano. The kids were amazed that she could sit there in the dark and play without looking at any music. It was nice to see how relaxed she became as she sat there playing — a sense of peace and calmness washed over her face as she played, a peace that doesn't often break through the confusion and tension that is such a part of her life now.

One evening after dinner, we all crowded around the piano with our flashlights and sang from an hold hymnal for an hour or more. (I'm sure the neighbors were loving it!) It reminded me of times we did that around the family piano when I was young. The kids had a ball and kept begging for more. It was a little strange to listen to Mom singing for memory three and four verses of hymns I haven't heard in years, when just hours earlier she couldn't remember whose house we were in.

I must admit, in a way the effect of the Alzheimer's was a blessing to Mom during this stressful week. We all took turns showing her repeatedly where the bathroom was, which room she was staying in, and where her cat was. But time was basically non-existent to her during her stay. By the time I took her home and got her settled back into familiar surroundings, she had already forgotten most of the time we spent together. In her mind, the hurricane had bypassed us altogether, there had been no power outage or other inconveniences, and we had simply enjoyed a nice couple of days' visit together while waiting to take her back home.

Looking back, I must admit that we survived the storm quite nicely. Now if we can just get the kids back to school next week, life will be back to the moderate level of insanity that we call "normal."

We're Alive!

Hurricane Ike has come and gone, and we're still here! And now that we have both power and water working in the house again, we are all feeling a little more human again. We are all so very spoiled with the luxuries of modern day living!

First, a quick update on our status: Surprisingly, we were hit pretty hard by the storm Friday night, even as far inland as we are. We lost power very early, and slept very little that night, but we were extremely fortunate in that we received almost no damage at all at our house. Several neighbors lost roofs, had trees that fell on their houses, or received other severe damage. There are fences, limbs and even entire trees down all over the neighborhood. Thankfully, we are far enough from the water to have missed the extreme flooding and absolute destruction that hit so many coastal communities like Galveston, Surfside, Baytown and so many others.

We did pack up Mom and her cat Jake on Friday and brought them up to our house in Tomball (far northwest Houston / Harris County). We all rode out the storm together, and with the cool front that came in the wake of the hurricane, even the lack of air conditioning for a few days was not that bad. We had water service back (very limited pressure, but enough to flush toilets) by Sunday, and the power came back on just as we were sitting down to a late candlelit dinner Monday night. Phone service was off and on until yesterday, but we charged the cell phone in the car once or twice (during scouting trips / AC breaks).

Luckily, we never lost natural gas service, so we were able to cook on the stovetop. We had stocked up plenty of drinking water and lots of canned goods, and we cooked and ate meat from the freezer as it thawed from lack of power. We never were really in bad shape, unlike so many others in the area and to the south of us. Again, we were very fortunate.

Mom's power and water service were back on by Tuesday morning, so I spent a good portion of the day yesterday getting essential food stocks for her (we had to stand in line for over an hour and a half just to get into the grocery store), taking her back home, and cleaning up her fridge and back yard. Other than some fence damage and possibly a few shingles blown off the roof, she did not have any real wind or water damage at her townhouse either. Again, we were fortunate — some in her neighborhood did not fair as well, although the damage there did not look near as extensive as what we saw further north in our neck of the woods.

Please be in prayer for the millions of people in the area who are still suffering from the storm damage. At last report, there were still over 2 million homes without power in the area. Thousands of homes have suffered severe wind and flood damage, and still more simply don't exist any more. The pictures we are now seeing of the coastal communities are heart-rending. WW's Aunt Frances and cousin Beth and her family had to leave their homes in Pasadena and Deer Park, and still don't know when they will be able to return home. There are lots of other extended family members and friends from whom we have not yet received any word — we are praying for them all and hoping for the best.

Well, the "quick update" became much longer than I had planned. I'll add another post later with some of the more humorous and personal events of our storm experience.

Preparing for Ike

A word of advice: Don't catch a stomach bug two days before a colossal tempest is expected to swamp your home.

Just a very quick update, in case anyone is checking in on us. Most of the Houston area has now shut down for the weekend, in preparation for Hurricane Ike's coming. I've spent most of the last day and a half collapsed in bed, while my Wonderful Wife has been getting things stockpiled and battened down around the homestead.

We plan on picking Mom up tomorrow (Friday) morning and bringing her here to stay with us for a couple of days. Hopefully there won't be any storm damage or flooding problems at her townhouse, but things are stressful and confusing enough for her without a weather emergency taking place. With the increased chance of power and/or phone loss, plus the potential of being stranded for a few days, we will all feel better if she and her feline protector are here under our roof. We have water and food enough to last several days, so hopefully we will all weather the storm without incident.

For anyone else in the path of the storm, please be safe! We'll check in with family as soon as we can after Ike passes through.

Plans for the Long Weekend

Actually, we don't have any really big plans this weekend, other than to enjoy the extra day and to prepare for Hurricane Gustav ... just in case!

Cat is spending the night with a friend from school tonight, so Cowboy will probably get to pick something special for dinner. And we'll probably end up playing "Goldfish" (Go Fish) until an hour or so past normal bedtime.

Cowboy's asthma started up again on Wednesday, so he and I haven't had nearly enough sleep the past couple of nights. I'm hoping we'll get to sleep in a little in the morning before we get up and start into Saturday cartoons and chores. No big plans for after church on Sunday, although we may try to find a park or someplace to do some walking and burn off a little energy if the weather holds (and everyone is feeling up to it).

Labor Day we'll either head over to spend some time with Mom, or go pick her up and bring her to our house if Gustav decides to come a'visiting. We saved Mom some homemade ice cream from last weekend. If we have to pack her up for a few days due to an approaching storm, I'm planning on using that as bait!