Second Week at Goose Island

Our official bird walks started off slow.  Out of 4 morning walks we only had two people.  That’s okay, we usually go ahead and do the walk anyway.  The main reason we’re in this area is to bird.  We bird every day. 

We work 25 hours (total) for our site here.  Every morning we check and fill the bird feeders at two viewing sites and a couple of other sites (headquarters, rec hall) that have bird feeders.  During the night racoons empty all the feeders, including the hummingbird feeders so we only put out enough food in the mornings to carry through that day.

A popular food for the birds is a peanut butter/lard/cornmeal mixture that we make.  We have a personal peanut butter “log” that Mark made about 25 years ago.  It’s a tree branch that he drilled holes into.  We stuff the peanut butter mixture into the holes.  It’s more natural for the birds to land on the log and dig and probe out the mixture. 

When we got here, we could only find one peanut butter log in the bird blinds so Mark made a few new ones.

Being at the beach, this area has very sandy soil.  It’s great for growing grass burs.  The ground inside the bird feeding stations is covered with grass burs.  Since we’re in that area every day, we decided to start digging them up.

This site didn’t take too long (4-5 hours) for us to get most of the burs up.  We filled our container up 3 times!  I bought a fleece blanket at the thrift store to drag over the ground and pick up as many grass burs as we could. 

I’m sure we missed some plants but we’ll keep at it.

It’s oyster season and we have started seeing the oyster boats on our walk to the new fishing pier.

The fishing pier is usually very popular but it was pretty windy today and we had the whole pier to ourselves. 

The red circle is our car.

We do have tides here in Texas!  But, if they get more than a few inches, they are mostly driven by wind.  You can tell it’s been windy ---

It’s not all birds, there are other critters to look for in the park.

We’re almost 1/3 through our stay here!  Stay tuned, there’s more to come.

The End 

First Week at Goose Island State Park

Our first week has been wonderful.  It is such a joy to be back on the Texas coast.  This is our third time to volunteer at this park but we have been camping here for over 20 years.

Our Site

We’ve been birding every day and seeing some wonderful birds.  We have some favorite spots to bird here in the park.  We’ve only been on the new fishing pier once so far.  It is really nice.

Brand new fishing pier.

Great Egret, Snowy Egret (2), 

Whooping Crane, Reddish Egret.

One of our favorite excursions on our day off is to take the ferry over to Port Aransas (Port Aransas is a city on Mustang Island).  I always think of it being good luck to see a dolphin during the ride and we always do see them. 

To the ferry.

The Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center is a hot spot for birding.  Hurricane Harvey took out the boardwalk three years ago and it has been rebuilt and is even better than before.  There are an unbelievable number of birds to see.  We spent a couple of hours watching the action. 

Thousands of Birds (Click on pictures to enlarge)

American Bittern

White Ibis 

White Pelican (2), Great Blue Heron,

White Ibis (2)

Black-necked Stilt

Green-winged Teal

There are a few other places that we like to bird.  We stopped at this park and saw several dolphins.  

For the first time since his back surgery last year, Mark played disc golf.  This is a brand new 9-hole disc golf course.  He took it very easy. 

It’s not all play - we have started our volunteer work here at the park.  Our official bird walks will start next week.  But in the meantime, there is plenty to keep us busy.  

There are two birding areas and a couple of other places around the park that have bird feeders that need to be filled. 

The hummingbird feeders have been sitting in the sun for months and needed a really good scrubbing.  

Washed, bleached, and ready for sugar.

We also do roving birding where we walk around the park in our volunteer shirts and answer any questions anyone might have.  Since we’re going to be walking around birding anyway, it’s a great way to get in volunteer hours. 

For the first time ever the Texas state parks have been issuing t-shirts instead of the collard shirts.  The shirts are a pretty hunter green color that doesn't show up on the pictures. 

We’ve returned to a few of our favorite restaurants and will be trying some new restaurants in the future.  The weather has been very nice and comfortable.  Every evening we take a walk around the park.  The sunsets are beautiful on the Texas coast. 

Sunset on the Copano Bay Bridge

Goose Island State Park

We’re so glad to be back in the RV and back at our favorite state park.  

We haven’t started volunteering yet (we arrived a few days early).  We’ll have orientation on Tuesday.  Our job is supposed to be Bird Host but the park isn’t sure if we will be giving bird walks or, if so, exactly what the protocol will be.  We’re pretty sure we will be keeping the two bird blind areas stocked with plenty of bird food.  I guess we’ll figure everything out on Tuesday.

It’s still warm and muggy here.  High today 83. 

The Bayfront camping area along with the brand-new fishing pier opened today.  

This area was wiped out by hurricane Harvey in August of 2017.  It’s pretty unbelievable that it took over 3 years to rebuild.  The new fishing pier is ADA approved and looks great. 

We’ve only been here a few days and already have a long bird list including a Whooping Crane.

This will be a great place to end the year.