Gulf Coast Bird Observatory | 299 Hwy 332 West, Lake Jackson, Texas 77566
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GCBO’s Spring Fling at Quintana Canceled
With the Brazoria shelter in place order and no more than 10 people at any place, and our wish to look out for one another, we have cancelled Spring Fling at Quintana. We want everyone to be safe, therefore the GCBO Host Station will be closed.
For now the Quintana sanctuaries will remain open to visitors, although the city hall and restroom is closed.
If you visit you must practice social distancing of 6 feet apart from any other person.
The Town of Quintana is monitoring this, and will close it down if not adhered to!
Please park in the marked parking area, and please eBird your sightings so we can track what’s being seen! If access changes we will post the new information.
All GCBO events have been cancelled or postponed. Brew on the Bayou was moved to Nov 7
th
, and we have cancelled the Birds in Art exhibit, bird banding, native plant sale, all our presentations and meetings, and suspended our Summer Bird Camp at least for now.
With so many events cancelled we need your help more than ever! Here’s a few ways you can help our conservation work continue:
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Please donate bird seed and oranges for Quintana! You can swing by our headquarters in Lake Jackson, TX, (once we are open again after order is lifted) or leave them down by the door at our Quintana Host Station.
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Our Host Station normally takes in many generous donations during Spring Fling, so instead you can go online to
www.gcbo.org
(or mail a check) and make a donation.
Thank you!
Martin
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Events Canceled/Postponed:
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Spring Fling is canceled this year, though we do still need volunteers to feed the birds and donations of bird seed, oranges, and funds.
Birds in Art Exhibition is canceled.
Bird Banding is canceled for April.
The Spring Native Plant Sale is canceled.
Summer Bird Camp is up in the air at the moment.
GCBO Headquarters and Plant Nursery closed until April 3
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Get your Spring Fling Shirts Now!
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Show your support for birds and Gulf Coast Bird Observatory by purchasing one of our shirts! Frankly, since all of our events are canceled, we now have way too many shirts and we need you to take them off our hands!
Your purchase will go towards helping our conservation and education projects. So you can stand proud wearing your new shirt and look good doing it!
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The American Oystercatchers are doing great so far this year! Our Director of Conservation Research, Susan Heath and her volunteers have found 25 nests so far on the upper Texas coast. Five of them have hatched and have 14 chicks total! By Port O’Connor, Alan and Brigid Berger have found 8 nests and five chicks. These birds lead exciting lives and you can keep up with it by adopting your very own pair (
here) and reading the weekly blog post “The Oystercatcher Diaries” (
here).
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Join GCBO's Online Bird School
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Welcome to GCBO's Online Bird School! Stuck at home in your nest? In these trying times, we thought it would be a cool idea to publish some online lessons about birds, conservation, and more! Kids and adults who are staying home can become birders, researchers, and wildlife advocates from their living rooms. We are working on even more lessons, so check back in every few days for something new. Check it out!
https://gcbo-school.thinkific.com/
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GCBO's First Children's Book is Out Now!
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Winnie the Wilson's Plover is a children's book written and illustrated for GCBO by our Education and Outreach Manager Celeste SIlling. This book shows children and parents what it's like to be a Wilson's Plover on a Texas beach during nesting season and what obstacles these birds face. Winnie overcomes predators, human disturbance, off-leash dogs and more with the help of a Shorebird Monitor. Children will learn that if they want to help these birds, they will stay out of nesting areas, leash their dogs, and not disturb the birds.
We will be passing out copies of the book on the beach this summer to educate the public and get some supporters in Winnie's corner! To teach your children how they can help these birds, read Winnie the Wilson's Plover for free here:
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Visit Our Online Nature Store
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You can now buy GCBO apparel and merchandise on our website! Help us, help birds, and help yourself to some awesome merchandise!
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GCBO's "For the Birds" Art Contest
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For our first art contest, we asked to see your best bird artwork inspired by our motto "For the Birds" and boy did our contestants come through! We received 54 wonderful submissions celebrating birds and GCBO. We had very VERY tough time deciding on winners, but now the results are in:
Middle School Winner: Minnie Tran
High School Winner: Marley Richards
Congrats to our winners and everyone who made such awesome artwork! Thank you!
If you want to see more of the submissions, take look at our website
here.
Special thanks to
Mickey Dufilho for funding this project!
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"The Great Blue Heron"
By Minnie Tran
Age 15
Brazoswood High School
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"Rose Colored Roseate"
By Marley Richards
Age 13
Lake Jackson Intermediate
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Due to covid 19, Bird Banding has been canceled for the month of April. We are planning on having it as usually in May, but that might change, so stay tuned!
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Adopt an Oystercatcher Pair and Keep Up With All the Mating Season Drama!
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It’s time again folks! We found the first American Oystercatcher nest on January 31. 12 & unbanded are leading the way as usual. Don't miss your chance to keep up with all the drama. If you would like to support this project (and we hope you would!) you can adopt a pair of oystercatchers for a $100 donation. You will receive a certificate for each member of your pair with their banding data and Sue will update you monthly on your pair's progress throughout the nesting season. When possible she will send you photos of nests and chicks. You can adopt your pair here:
adopt a pair of birds
or call and talk to Tricia or Sue. Thanks everyone for your continued support of this important project!
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Upcoming GCBO Birding Trips
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Cuba Birding Expedition - 1 opening!
October 15-26, 2020
Due to a cancellation we have one single opening for the upcoming Cuba trip!
Join GCBO for a trip of a lifetime! GCBO have worked on several Cuban bird conservation initiatives over the years. Here is your chance to join Executive Director Martin Hagne, and Conservation Research Director, Sue Heath, in not only collecting valuable bird data over much of Cuba, but also visit a migration banding station in the most bird diverse area of Cuba, Guanahacabibes!
The expedition includes 12 days and 11 nights. That’s 10 1/2 days of intense birding! It will include a chance for all but two of Cuba’s 28 endemic bird species! This will be a fairly fast paced exploration, with some early breakfasts and long days and much travel between sites, all intended to explore as many habitats as possible for the highest species count.
Our GCBO trips also help fund our continuing bird conservation work! Come bird with us, have a great time, and help us fulfil our mission!
You can get more information on or
website
or send
Martin
an email.
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Have you updated your email preferences yet?
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We're working on fine tuning our email list so that you only get emails that matter to you. At the very bottom of each email there is an "
update profile
" or "
unsubscribe
" link you can click that will take you to a page where you can make your selections. We now have specific lists for things like volunteer news, special announcements, events, bird of the month, and more. Please take a moment to
update your preferences
if you haven't already. Thank you!
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You can help support GCBO's mission in several important ways!
Save a Tree and some $!
We are trying to go as paperless as we can to save some trees and quite a bit on printing and mailing costs. We would love if you would let us email you instead of snail mailing a hard copy of any correspondence, including your future copies of the Gulf Crossings. Please
email
or call
Tricia
to say: “
Hey, GCBO, please start emailing me things! Here is my email…”
Thanks!
DONATE NOW
on our website to support our conservation programs.
BECOME A MEMBER
and receive our twice a year newsletter and a 10% discount in our nature store.
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Make an in-kind donation to support our sanctuary needs.
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Tents
We are in need of a few more 12’ x 12’ pop up tents/canopies. If you have one or more in good contention, we will put them to good use for kid’s camp, XHX, and Brew on the Bayou!
Rain Gauge
With all the rain from Imelda we realized we need a good quality rain gauge so we can keep track of how much rain we receive at our headquarters.
Black Oil Sunflower Seed and Chicken Scratch
We feed year-round here at GCBO, and during migration at Quintana. We stock our GCBO feeders to help augment natural foods, and this also helps our monthly banding research project.
One Gallon Plastic Pots
We can use your used 1 gallon nursery plant pots for the Growery. We go through a lot of 1 gallon pots when potting up new plants. Let’s recycle them here. We’ll take one or a hundred!
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Now when you shop at Kroger, you can support GCBO!
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GCBO is a registered charity through Kroger's Community Rewards Program. This means that you can register your Kroger Plus Card online and select GCBO as the organization of your choice. Every time you use your Kroger Plus Card, Kroger will donate a portion back to GCBO! This is an easy way to support GCBO while you shop - your donations help us continue to protect birds and birding habitat around the Gulf Coast and beyond. To register your Plus Card, click
here
. Our charity number is #DN782.
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Follow us on Facebook and Instagram!
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