Leader: Skip Almoney

Note: Due to the pandemic, we will practice social distancing. Please bring a face mask with you.

About the Survey

Houston Audubon Society is conducting a monthly survey at Hogg Bird Sanctuary. The surveys are held on the first Monday of the month. Skip Almoney is our leader. The Hogg Bird Sanctuary is adjacent to Bayou Bend and shares its parking facility at 1 Westcott Street. Meet at the parking lot at the dead-end on the south end of Westcott Street. We meet at 7:30 AM in the parking lot. If the gate is locked, we can park in the upper parking lot and then walk down to the lower parking lot to meet. Everyone is welcome — beginners, experts, or even if you’re just curious. Please bring binoculars. If you don’t have any, let us know in advance and we’ll provide them.

The Eastern Glades portion of Memorial Park is also included in the survey. The Eastern Glades will be a pretty short survey (30 minutes to an hour max). We should finish both by 9:30. If you can’t stay that long, no problem. Right now the Eastern Glades is still under construction, and our access is limited. However, in 2020 there will be a nice boardwalk and lake, so it should eventually become a great birding area. For more information about the Eastern Glades, please see below.

About Hogg Bird Sanctuary

The Hogg Bird Sanctuary is located at the south end of Westcott St., just off Memorial Dr. It is across Buffalo Bayou from River Oaks Golf Course. It shares the parking lot with Bayou Bend. It has been managed by Houston Parks and Recreation Department since its origin on October 21, 1958. The Hogg Bird Sanctuary is a special place, being a small natural area essentially unchanged by development. It is more a sanctuary than a park and contains no recreational equipment. It remains a natural area with many native plants. It also has quite a few non-native invasive plants. Efforts to control the invasives are continuing. For example, most of the large rain trees have been removed, but new growth trees continue to be a problem.

The First Monday Bird Survey began in 2010. At that time it was fairly difficult to get around in the area. Since then the Houston Parks and Recreation Department has continued to create and maintain a number of hiking trails, resulting in a much more accessible sanctuary. The bird population varies as seasons and weather change. The average number of species seen during a survey is 23. The total number of species recorded is over 60. Included are mostly local nesting species such as Northern Cardinal, Blue Jay, American Crow, Carolina Wren, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Chickadee, White-winged Dove, Northern Mockingbird, Pileated, Downy, and Red-bellied Woodpeckers, to name a few. Because much of the boundary of the sanctuary is Buffalo Bayou, a few waterbirds have been recorded such as Snowy Egret, Great Egret, Great Blue Heron, Little Blue Heron, Wood Duck, Belted Kingfisher, two varieties of cormorants, etc. There have been a few migrants, but it is difficult to know if they will nest or move on to Minnesota or the Arctic. A nesting Red-shouldered Hawk was a favorite until the sycamore branch that held the nest broke.

Please join Outside Nature Club for the Houston Ornithology Group monthly meeting, online via Zoom (and perhaps also at Bayland Community Center, 6400 Bissonnet St, Houston).

6:30 pm Social
7:15 pm Program by Kendra Kocab, “Birds and more in Southeast Asia”

Volunteers meet the second and fourth Thursday of every month to propagate plants from locally collected native seed. A typical workday may include seeding pots, bumping up trays into 1-gallon containers, separating seedlings, and weeding pots. They will also have special seed collecting trips, invasive species removal workdays, and planting events in restored prairies.

If you’re interested in volunteering for the Natural Resource Management Program, email kelli.ondracek@houstontx.gov or visit houstontx.gov/parks/naturalresources.html.

Join CEC and the City of Houston on December 11 to leverage community resources and create strategic opportunities for Houston-area youth to engage in civic conversations and actions around climate resilience. This virtual, collaborative planning workshop is for all Houston informal educators and community engagement coordinators. Details and free registration via this Eventbrite link.