The Galveston County Audubon Group is a loosely organized sub-set of Houston Audubon that primarily focuses our attention on the great birding that’s available to us here on the coast.  The meetings and field trips are free and we’re always open to having both locals and out of town visitors stop in and attend our monthly meetings and field trips.  This month we featured a presentation on how to approach a “Big Year” for Galveston County by Bob Becker (centered in the photo taken by Mark Staskauskas).  On 12 January, Bob gave us an entertaining slide show with some great photographs of a few of the 307 species he encountered through 2021 here in Galveston County.  We followed that presentation up with a great field trip out to explore the Texas City Dike area on Saturday, 14 January.  We were blessed with spectacular weather and had some really nice views of species like Bonaparte’s Gulls, White Pelicans, American Oystercatchers, American Pipits and Hooded Mergansers.  We were able to tease out some specialties like a Horned Grebe and a motley group that included a Bufflehead, 2 Common Goldeneye and a Black Scoter.

If you’re interested in spending a few hours each month catching up with our local birding community and seeing some neat birding locations, please visit the Galveston Island Nature Tourism Council’s website (www.galvestonnaturetourism.org) and check out the events page.