Photo credit: Dana Nelson, Cattail Marsh, December 18, 2018
You are welcome to attend monthly meetings, featuring speakers on birding and natural history topics, and including a delicious member-provided evening meal -- with desserts! Our monthly field trips are fun and educational, and focus on locations along the coast, marshes, prairies, and forests of the area.
Membership Meeting
Thursday February 16, 2023
Garden Center, Tyrrell Park, Beaumont
Exploring Kenya as solo travelers
and investigating the wonders of the Masai Mara
Cody and Phuong Conway
Cody and Phuong Conway are biologist graduates from Lamar University that spend their time exploring the natural world to bring its beauty closer to home for friends, family, and those in their network. Traveling as professional photographers, they aspire to show just how small the world can be and inspire others to get out and explore, alone or with a group.
In their careers, Phuong is a veterinary technician in Lumberton, while Cody is working in Liquified Natural Gas.
We plan to have the doors open no later than 6:00 p.m., the meeting will start at 7:00 p.m. sharp
Note about Highway 124 Bridge
The Highway 124 bridge over Hillebrandt Bayou is currently closed. To get to Tyrrell Park from Highway 69, it is necessary to take IH-10 west towards Houston and exit almost immediately at the Walden Road exit, turning south (left) on Walden Road. Cross over Highway 124 onto Tyrrell Park Road and after 3/4 mile, turn left into Tyrrell Park as usual. The Garden Center is on the left, just inside the park.
Saturday February 18 2023
Field Trip to Anahuac NWR.
We plan to meet at the Visitor information Station just beyond the entrance at 8:30 a.m. There are toilets there, accessible at all times. To reach Anahuac NWR from Winnie, take Highway 124 south to FM 1985. (It is 11.0 miles from IH-10 and half a mile less from Highway 73.) Turn right (west) on FM 1985 and proceed about 11 miles to the MAIN Anahuac NWR Entrance Road on the left (to the south). As you drive along FM 1985, check any cowbird/blackbird flocks carefully for Yellow-headed Blackbirds.
The entrance to the Main Refuge is just over 3 miles down the Entrance Road. Stop along this road only where you can safely pull completely off the road. Obey the speed limits on that road and in the refuge, and stop completely at the stop signs! Watch along the entrance road especially near the south end for Crested Caracaras and White- tailed Kites. A Burrowing Owl is wintering along the shoreline of East Bay near Frozen Point.
We will probably visit the main unit ("Old Anahuac") and possibly also the Skillern Tract, looking primarily for waterfowl and other waterbirds but also raptors and sparrows.
There are usually geese and Bald Eagles on and near the refuge in winter. In normal years, Shoveler Pond attracts large numbers of ducks. However, the Refuge drew down the Pond in 2022 to better manage the vegetation for ducks, but in the early part of the season, ducks have not found the Pond to their liking. As noted elsewhere in this issue, the weather has been somewhat unusual, and it seems likely that many species, not only waterfowl, have been late in flying south to our area this year.