Sunday, July 19, 2009

Galveston: Part 2

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I've visited Galveston State Park a few times but I have never had much luck with birds there. On Saturday I limited myself to the northern section of the park and I fared a little better.
Although most of the trees look unlikely to recover from Ike, the grasses are certainly flourishing.
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As everywhere else on Galveston, I saw plenty of Willets and Laughing Gulls.
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Laughing Gull

Butterflies and dragonflies were plentiful, too.

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A clump of trees provided a roost for these and other Great Egrets.


I was initially so focused on the Egrets that I didn't notice that the same tree contained a White Ibis ...

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... and a Black-crowned Night Heron.

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Meanwhile the next tree had a Green Heron.


By now it was 8:45 and time to go to pick up Dee from the motel to make a 10:00 rendezvous with Carlos Aguilar, with whom we were going to visit Bolivar and Anahuac.

2 comments:

Dorothy Borders said...

Thanks for this view of Galveston. I've avoided going there this spring and summer, but it is nice to see that at least some birds and certainly the butterflies are doing well. In time, I'm sure that Nature will be all the way back - although not necessarily in the same form as before Ike.

Jeff said...

Galveston is certainly doing a lot better than Bolivar or Anahuac. I was really shocked by the devastation at Rollover Pass and Anahuac. However, I didn't look further west than Gavleston State Park and so I don't know how bad the west end may be.