During the spring migration here on the Gulf coast, there is a phenomenon known as a fallout.  If you’re a birdwatcher and you find yourself along the Texas coast in April, you keep your eyes to the sky and watch the weather forecasts.  If you are lucky (and the birds are not), a fast moving frontal boundary moves south at the exact time that flocks of migrating songbirds are winging there way north across the vast open water expanse of the Gulf of Mexico.  Under perfect circumstances these dainty warblers, vireos, buntings and orioles catch favorable winds and make the 500 mile flight from the Yucatan Peninsula to our coast in about 18 hours and have ample energy to find shelter, food and water someplace on the coastal plain.  If however, they make that commitment and leave the sight of land to our south and then run into strong head winds, the crossing quickly turns into a life and death struggle with many not making it to the northern shoreline.  Those that do arrive are completely depleted of energy and collapse in exhaustion in the nearest safe cover they can find.  This is called a fallout as the birds will literally drop from thousands of feet in the air over the first piece of solid ground they encounter.

If you’ve been outside on property over the last couple of days, you most probably have noticed a LOT of small, colorful, chirping birds moving around in the trees and shrubs all across the project.  The combination of the strong cold front that arrived overnight Saturday and the continued northeast winds through Sunday have stopped thousands of birds here on the Island.  They are resting and foraging for any quick nutrition and energy they can get including bugs, berries and seeds.  The diversity of species through the entire spring migration is truly amazing, but when you see it suddenly over the course of a few days it’s exhilarating.

The very colorful bird pictured above is a male Painted Bunting.  These guys look like something imagined by a creative child and the super-deluxe Crayola box.  Often in mixed flocks with their equally brilliant cousins, the Indigo Bunting, they work along hedges and the edges of wooded lots picking seeds and insects from the leaves and grass.  Normally the males of these migrating birds will move north first to stake out prime nesting habitat and await the arrival of the females.  It’s critical that they wing quickly north to find the perfect balance of food, water and shelter and defend those resources.

In the first 9 days of April, the property species count jumped from 112 to 139 with 17 new species in the last 4 days alone.  The species additions listed in order of sighting are; Semipalmated Sandpiper, Short-billed Dowitcher, Chimney Swift, Eastern Kingbird, Cliff Swallow, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Moorhen, Gull-billed Tern, Common Grackle, Orchard Oriole, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Summer Tanager, Indigo Bunting, Painted Bunting, Blue Grosbeak, Worm-eating Warbler, Hooded Warbler, Nashville Warbler, White-eyed Vireo, Prothonotary Warbler, Northern Parula, Wood Thrush, Kentucky Warbler, Red-eyed Vireo, Blue-winged Warbler and Least Flycatcher.

As favorable weather conditions return and these birds refuel, they will be moving on to the north towards their nesting grounds.  The spring migration will continue through the next 4-6 weeks, so there should be a continual rotation of individuals and species moving through our area.  If you get a chance to get out on property over the next few days, please take advantage of this rare spring fallout.  The number of individuals and diversity of species isn’t something to take for granted as this type of event is something that occurs every few years when the exact conditions coincide.

This morning as I walked in to work I was distracted by hundreds of individuals of dozens of species flitting amongst the foliage.  I was reminded that just as these lovely songbirds make their way north following the food resources; they bring with them a cadre of Avian predators that reap the bounty of this moving buffet.  I was just framing a picture of a nice male Painted Bunting just like the one pictured above when an American Kestrel whizzed past and scooped him up for breakfast. As the saying goes “a bird’s gotta eat”.  I saw a Merlin yesterday hunting around the north marsh near the tree farm terrorizing a similar group of Buntings.  The falcon species are specialists at hunting fast moving prey, especially birds.

Nature sometimes seems cruel, but it’s sooo kewl at the same time

In an effort to showcase the tremendous bird diversity that exists on Moody Gardens’ property, I began to survey as much of the easily accessible areas on as frequent a basis as I could, beginning with the New Year.  Throughout the month of January I spent about an hour a day looking at the various habitats that our 242 acre property boasts.  From the waterfront wrapping more than a mile around our east and north shorelines through the wooded areas in the interior, the prairie and marsh on our northwest border and the man-made retention ditches between the Aquarium and the west parking lot there is a wide variety of habitat for birds to utilize.   I drove approximately 2 miles on my morning commute as many days as my schedule and the weather allowed.  I repeated this on any trips off property during the day and when I left in the afternoons to catalog as many species as I saw on or from property.  As the end of January approached, I spent a morning photographing birds and walking the areas that weren’t accessible by car.  I also took the advice of a colleague and surveyed the Moody Gardens Golf Course located just west of Scholes Field.  Through the end of the month I checked off 76 species for our main property with another 9 at the Golf Course.

Galveston Island, and Moody Gardens’ winter bird diversity skews towards Raptors like the Red-tailed Hawk pictured above, and Waterfowl.  Raptors sighted on property during January included Osprey, Northern Harrier, Cooper’s Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, American Kestrel, Merlin and Peregrine Falcon.  A Sharp-shinned Hawk was seen at the Golf Course on the January 31^st survey.  Additionally, a White-tailed Hawk was seen on the wires at the very south end of the airport property that would technically be visible if viewed through a scope from the mulch pile/tree farm area, although not included in the total species count.

Waterfowl diversity was primarily noted on the Golf Course with the pond habitat that these species prefer.  We did encounter Snow Geese, Gadwall, Mallard, Mottled Duck, Lesser Scaup and Red-breasted Merganser from our main property.  The Golf Course survey added Blue-winged Teal, Green-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler, and Ruddy Duck to the list.  The Snow Geese are fly-overs that don’t typically utilize any habitat out here on Galveston Island.  The Mallard are almost certainly domestic strain as the few wild Mallard we see are spooked by humans and would not typically use ponds that have human disturbance.

A complete list of the 76 species encountered on Moody Gardens main property in January is listed here in Taxonomic order:

Snow Goose, Gadwall, Mallard, Mottled Duck, Lesser Scaup, Red-breasted Merganser, Common Loon, Pied-billed Grebe, American White Pelican, Brown Pelican, Neotropic Cormorant, Double-crested Cormorant, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Little Blue Heron, Tricolored Heron, Reddish Egret, Cattle Egret, Green Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron, White Ibis, Roseate Spoonbill, Osprey, Northern Harrier, Cooper’s Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, American Kestrel, Merlin, Peregrine Falcon, Clapper Rail, Sandhill Crane, Black-bellied Plover, Killdeer, American Oystercatcher, American Avocet, Spotted Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs, Willet, Lesser Yellowlegs, Ruddy Turnstone, Least Sandpiper, Wilson’s Snipe, Laughing Gull, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Caspian Tern, Forster’s Tern, Royal Tern, Black Skimmer, Rock Pigeon, Eurasian Collared Dove, White-winged Dove, Mourning Dove, Belted Kingfisher, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Wood Peewee, Loggerhead Shrike, Blue Jay, Marsh Wren, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Northern Mockingbird, European Starling, American Pipit, Orange-crowned Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Savannah Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Eastern Meadowlark, Great-tailed Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird, House Finch and House Sparrow.

The additional 9 species encountered on the Golf Course survey include:

Blue-winged Teal, Green-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler, Ruddy Duck, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Common Moorhen, American Coot, Long-billed Curlew, and Red-winged Blackbird.

The spring migration should add dramatically to the diversity already encountered.  Monthly updates through 2018 will offer additional information on specific habitat areas on our property and some of the ecological premises behind migration and resident populations.