Louise,
A warning about Galveston Is. in April is that it is a big draw for apparently-wild spring break students. Once when down there on my husband's spring break from his school principal job, we were at the ferry ready to head back to Houston via that route in order to take "birding advantage." The locals there warned us against it, saying the road would be a "slowly moving parking lot." We turned around and went the other way. That may have been a weekend, but it was definitely associated w. spring break. So check it out and time your drives accordingly. Also, Bolivar Flats, fabulous the year we were there, was badly damaged in the ensuing hurricane. Perhaps by now the refrigerators have all been removed from the beach! Driving along, we were looking at the houses on the water side asking each other if the owners were nuts for building there... Then came the storm. The last two times we birded that area of TX, we thought Sabine Woods was far superior to High Island. A local commented last time that he had been coming from Houston to High Island for 18 yrs and found the warbler numbers decreasing steadily, especially at Boy Scout Woods. Hurricane Rita took out some of the biggest trees in "The Cathedral" there.

We found Wilson's suggested book, the ABA guide to the TX Coast really helpful, though we also made good use of the Falcon Guide. You have some time, so if you get a chance, go into the SAS Nature Shop and look them over. The books are 20% off for members.
Penny Koyama, Bothell
plkoyama at frontier.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Louise Rutter
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 7:09 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Texas Galveston Birding


A work conference is putting me on Galveston Island, TX in mid-April - could be worse! I'm considering which books to invest in, and looking on Amazon, I'm debating:



Finding Birds on the Great Texas Birding Trail: Houston, Galveston and Upper Texas, by Ted L Eubanks Jr

Exploring the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail, by Mel White (Falcon Guide)

Birdlife of Houston, Galveston and the Upper Texas Coast, by Ted L Eubanks Jr

Birding Texas, by Roland H Wauer (Falcon Guide)



If anyone has experience using these books, particularly in the Galveston Island area, I would appreciate your comments. Of course, if you know of better books, I'd love to hear that too. I will be hiring a car, but I'm not looking to drive more than about 90 minutes from Galveston Island to bird, so if anyone has recommendations for good bird spots in that radius, please fill me in!



Louise Rutter

Kirkland



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