Meetings and Field Trips

Membership Meeting

Thursday, August 19, 2010

7:00 PM

Garden Center, Tyrrell Park, Beaumont

Big Thicket National Preserve

Inventorying the Bird Populations

David Roemer, Chief of Resources Management at Big Thicket National Preserve, will present a brief summary of past bird inventories and the present avian landscape of the Preserve, and then present some ideas for future inventory and monitoring. Some of the ideas being explored are expanded Christmas Bird Counts, breeding bird survey routes, point count surveys, establishment of an e-bird kiosk at the Preserve's Visitor Center, and forming an avian "TWiG" (taxonomic working group) to inventory birds in connection with the Thicket of Diversity All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory. Engaged volunteers and knowledgeable birders are central to the success of any of these concepts so the speaker is eagerly anticipating your input!

Big Thicket National Preserve, managed by the National Park Service, was established “to assure the preservation, conservation, and protection of the natural, scenic, and recreational values of a significant portion of the Big Thicket area in the State of Texas” by law enacted on October 11, 1974. Big Thicket National Preserve is a “biological crossroads” that has been set aside for its biodiversity. The incorporation of diverse plant communities and habitats, including representative terrestrial units connected by linear aquatic corridors, was a central principle of the Preserve’s establishment, designed in the hopes of protecting the ecosystems, communities, and processes needed to support the native biological diversity of the region amidst a rapidly-developing landscape. The Preserve is also a UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme Biosphere Reserve and an American Bird Conservancy Important Bird Area. The Preserve would like to make birds, protection of bird habitat, and birdwatching, focal points for future park management.

David has been with the National Park Service as a resource manager since 1996 and has been in the Big Thicket since 2008. He used to live at one of the great birding hotspots in New Mexico - Rattlesnake Springs - while he worked at Carlsbad Caverns. David has also worked at Bryce Canyon in Utah where he reestablished the Bryce CBC circle after a three-decade absence.

 We will plan on having the doors open by about 6:00 p.m. and the program will start at 7:00 p.m. sharp. 

Directions to Garden Center in

Tyrrell Park.

From the south

 Go "north" on US69/96/287 around the south side of Beaumont

Take Texas 124 (south or west, whichever it is signed) towards Fannett (left turn under the highway)

Travel about a mile to the first light.

At the first light, turn left onto Tyrrell Park Road and go about 1/2 mile.

Turn left into Tyrrell Park through the nice new arch.

Almost immediately turn left at the conservatory into the parking lot for the Garden Center. .

 From IH10

 Exit at Walden Road on the west side of Beaumont

Go south of Walden Road for about 1/2 mile to the first light

At the light go straight over Highway 124 onto Tyrrell Park Road and go about 1/2 mile

Turn left into Tyrrell Park through the nice new arch.

 Almost immediately turn left at the conservatory into the parking lot for the Garden Center.

Saturday August 28.  Field Trip to Bolivar Flats.

Southward shorebird migration begins in late July and continues through most of September. This trip, which is one week later than our "standard" Saturday following the Thursday Membership Meeting, should find lots of migrating and arriving winter shorebirds. Hurricane Ike moved a lot of sand all along the shore. However, Bolivar Flats is slowly reverting to its previous landscape. Although the birds are there, in some conditions of tide and wind, the mud flat areas are not easily accessible. On the Rettilon Road side, the water sometimes is all the way up to the vegetation. There has almost always been much area of mud flat on the North Jetty side, where the views tend to be somewhat distant. The flats as we knew them are re-forming, as the sand and sediment (and likely a few tar balls!) are transported southwestward down the shoreline. However, the process is quite slow!

Meet leader John Whittle at the vehicle barrier at Bolivar Flats at 8:30 a.m. Take Highway 124 south from Winnie about 20 miles through High Island. At the shoreline, turn right along Highway 87 and proceed approximately 25 miles through Gilchrist and Crystal Beach until you come to the intersection with Loop 108. At that intersection, turn left (south -- the opposite direction from Loop 108) on Rettilon Road to the beach. If conditions permit, drive onto the sand and turn right to the vehicle barrier (about 1/2 mile). It is about a 90-minute drive, with no allowance for stops, from Beaumont or mid-County to the Flats.

It may be that because of the limitations of reasonable access, that we will not spend as much time at the flats as we might normally. If that is the case, we may well stop in at High Island and look for early land bird migrants.

Important Note: Galveston County has a beach parking permit program on the Bolivar Peninsula. Anyone can drive on the beach for free. But if you park on the beach in most areas, including the area adjacent to Bolivar Flats, you are required to have a parking permit on your windshield. The fee for the permit is $10.00 a year. Essentially all stores that are open on the Peninsula sell them and you should be buy one as you pass through.