SEPTEMBER 2024

Dear friend,

Here's what's happening at Houston Audubon this month:

HOUSTON BIRD WEEK 2024 CALENDAR REVEALED!

Be the first to check out the exciting lineup of events for #HoustonBirdWeek 2024! Bird Week is a celebration of the important role Houston plays in the journey of billions of migratory birds and the everyday lives of our resident birds. Along with our local conservation partners, we've arranged a week of events centered around our region’s birds and wildlife. Whether you're into birds, books, plants, classes, photography, or just meeting other bird nerds, there's something for everyone to enjoy. Registration is now open!

FEATURED EVENTS

SANCTUARY SNAPSHOT

Houston Audubon owns and manages 17 bird sanctuaries totaling over 4,100 acres, many of which are open to the public! Our most frequented sanctuaries include the Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary in west Houston and our High Island and Bolivar Flats sanctuaries on the coast. 

Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary

We are thrilled to announce that Edith L. Moore is back open to the public! For your safety, please stay on trails and respect any blocked-off areas. After Hurricane Beryl, the sanctuary was hit pretty hard, and we were forced to close for seven weeks while we deployed help to make the sanctuary safe for visitors. This included contacting arborists to remove dangerous trees, working with Harris County Flood Control District to clear trees from Rummel Creek, cleaning trails of debris, re-shaping trails, and re-building broken barriers and boardwalks. Work on the boardwalk around the big pond is ongoing. We are grateful to the trail crew volunteers, staff, and donors who helped us in the weeks after the hurricane.

Staff have recorded notable sightings in the sanctuary including a dinner plate-sized bull frog, Acadian flycatchers, and hummingbirds! Migrants are beginning to trickle in too, with Black-and-white and Hooded Warblers making their appearances! Finally, a Screech Owl was seen near the Natives Nursery!

Fall programming at Edith L. Moore is back! Kids ages 3-5, accompanied by an adult, can join us for our Fledgling Friends fall session or a one-off Stories and Crafts in the Cabin. Everyone is welcome at Cabin, Coffee, Conversation for free, held one Saturday a month. We're also bringing back our popular Night Hikes and the Brush & Beak Art Series - those sell out quick so be sure to register soon!

On the Coast

While most of our volunteer programs won’t kick off for the fall season in the coastal sanctuaries until next month, we do have two activities on the calendar for September. The first is our monthly Bolivar Flats Ramble on Saturday, September 7th at 10 AM. We will meet at the vehicular barrier and search for birds and other coastal wildlife. The other is our Bolivar Flats Beach Clean-up on Saturday, September 21st 9 AM. This is just one of the many scheduled Bird Week activities offered by Houston Audubon, and is a great opportunity to get the sanctuary tidied up before our wintering shorebirds arrive.

The colonial waterbirds nesting in the Smith Oaks rookery have largely wrapped up with the notable exception of the Cattle Egrets, many of which were still incubating young chicks at the end of August. Also of note was the large number of displaying Neotropic Cormorants. This species began nesting at the rookery in the fall several years ago, but the last two years have not, likely due to drier conditions. We are anxiously waiting to see if they’ll nest this fall.

On the birding front, fall migration has set in with waves of Yellow and Black-and-white Warblers, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Orchard Orioles, and Empidonax flycatchers finding their way into the High Island sanctuaries. Upland Sandpipers can be heard most mornings and evenings giving their bubbly calls as they fly unseen overhead. Other shorebirds have been moving for several weeks now and Bolivar Flats is regularly hosting over 100 Piping Plovers along with many thousand hungry sandpipers and other waterbirds. The comparatively drier weather last month has offered a slight reprieve from the mosquitoes in the sanctuaries following a fierce summer. We’ve officially turned the corner of summer birding into migration and, once again, every day promises the possibility of finding newly arrived birds on their sojourn southward.

Sanctuary Spotlight: Damuth Bird Sanctuary

Houston Audubon is an accredited Land Trust, which in a simplified sense means we have a lot of land and do a pretty good job of managing it for wildlife as bird sanctuaries. Many of our sanctuaries are available to the public, and others are just for the birds and wildlife. One of these properties that we hope to make available to the public soon, is Damuth Bird Sanctuary. Damuth is a 617-acre bottomland sanctuary donated to Houston Audubon by Malcolm Damuth in 1984. Bottomland forests are known for their mixed hardwood trees and typically contain birds that live in wet environments, such as Prothonotary Warblers and Yellow-crowned Night Herons. Damuth is so wet because it sits on the San Jacinto River Basin and Tarkington Bayou. Future plans for this lovely property include expanding our trail system and building more boardwalks for enjoyment of the wetter parts of the sanctuary.

NEWS & BIRDING

Featured Beak: Red-headed Woodpecker

Protect Bolivar Flats

Birding Tour Opportunities: Jamaica & Belize

Meet Houston Audubon's Office Manager, Macheli Flores

WAYS TO HELP

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