While attending school getting his Bachelor of Science in Marine Biology, Jeff conducted tropical fish counts and identification for Texas Parks & Wildlife and NOAA. He is a Dive Master and Scientific Diver. He’s been birding for 17 years mainly in Texas. His Texas list is at 566 and his Galveston County list is at 326. He lived in Galveston from 2007 – 2015 and now lives in Austin.
This first-time FeatherFest field trip led by Richard Gibbons, Gulf Coast Program Manager for the American Bird Conservancy, is geared for those who come to the Texas Gulf Coast to focus on bird species with range limits in this area. We focus on local specialties such as Roseate Spoonbill, Wilson’s Plovers, Horned Lark, Seaside Sparrow, etc. Richard will take you to the places these birds are most likely to be. He has worked as an ornithologist for more than two…
Find out more »Galveston is a Gulf coastal island renowned for its many habitats. On the Gulf beaches, you’ll scan out on the swells and incoming surf for rafts of waterfowl and seabirds. Walking along the beach the edge of the surf is active with the antics of the island’s year-round and migrating peeps, Reddish Egret, Great Blue Heron, and shorebirds foraging on “what the tide brung-in.” Away from the water among the dunes of San Luis Pass, East Beach and GISP, Savannah Sparrow and Horned Lark flit about. Beyond the dunes are briny ponds holding roosting seabirds, Nelson’s and Seaside Sparrows, rails, coots, and water birds. In the bay and tidal marshes migrating and nesting herons, egrets and cormorants in their breeding best, forage. The avian fauna is always in flux with the advance and retreat of the tide moving the food chain in and out. Among the tidally influenced habits and the open coastal prairies and oak mottes migrating songbirds need to refuel and find fresh water.
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