Photo credit: Dana Nelson, Cattail Marsh, December 18, 2018. Credit for Website Design: Jeff Pittman.
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 20, 2025 7:00 p.m.
Garden Center, Tyrrell Park, Beaumont
Rehabbing in Southeast Texas
Donald Kamp
Village Mills, Texas
Donald Kamp is a licensed rehabber in Hardin County for small mammals, amphibians, reptiles (tortoises), bobcats, bears, mountain lions. This program was originally scheduled as our January meeting, but postponed due to the weather and road conditions.
We plan to have the doors open at 6:00 p.m. The meeting will start at 7:00 p.m.
Directions to Tyrrell Park From the South Go "north" on US69/96/287 around the south side of Beaumont. Take Highway 124 west (left) towards Fannett At the first light, turn left onto Tyrrell Park Road and go about 3/4 mile. Turn left into the park through the arch. The Garden Center is on the left. For Cattail Marsh, continue ahead and proceed about two-thirds of the way round the main loop and into the well-marked Cattail Marsh parking area.
From IH10 Exit at Walden Road on the west side of Beaumont and turn south (right) on Walden Road. At the light at Highway 124, go straight ahead on Tyrrell Park Road and then as above.
Saturday February 22 2025
Field Trip to Anahuac NWR
Plan to meet at the Visitor Information Station (VIS) 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. Watch along the entrance road especially near the south end for Crested Caracaras and White-tailed Kites. Car- pooling will be necessary as we travel beyond the VIS. There is parking at the VIS to leave vehicles. A Burrowing Owl is wintering a short distance south of the VIS, but is sometimes out of sight in the pipe that serves as its winter home.
We will visit the main unit 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. Shoveler Pond for years attracted large numbers of ducks. However, the Refuge drew down the Pond in 2022 to better manage the vegetation, and it has taken a long time to return to its former glory. The weather over the last two years has been somewhat unusual, and it seems likely that many species, not only waterfowl, have again been late in flying south, and some may not come as far south as our area.
Saturday March 8, 2025
Sabine Woods Work Day
To prepare the Woods for Spring. As this is written, it is too early to tell the effects of the snow and freeze on the vegetation at Sabine Woods and what will need to be done. We have some tools but expect to have to fill holes caused by armadillos and feral hogs, so please bring a spade if possible. Loppers and clippers will also be useful. Contact John Whittle at gtaudubon@aol.com for more information.