If you would like to donate an experience or other item, please contact mhagne@gcbo.org.

Learn more about the auction or bid here.

GCBO received a $32,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to upgrade our Motus towers with Cellular Tracking Technology capability. Believe it or not the technology in our current Motus towers is already outdated! This upgrade will allow our towers to detect traditional Motus tags as always but they will also be able to detect CTT LifeTags, PowerTags, and nodes. LifeTags and PowerTags are small transmitters that are powered by solar energy rather than requiring a battery so they can be put on much smaller birds and the tag lasts the lifetime of the bird. When CTT nodes are placed in a grid fashion, you can track individual birds to their exact location which will provide many opportunities for research on bird breeding or wintering within the range of one of our towers. This upgrade will also allow us to check the status of a tower remotely and data download is much simpler. The upgrades will begin in January 2021 and will proceed throughout the year until all 15 towers are updated. We are greatly looking forward to these awesome improvements!

This month, GCBO, in partnership with American Bird Conservancy and Black Cat GIS organized a small cleanup of the Bolivar Peninsula. This cleanup was a part of the S.P.L.A.Sh initiative that our three groups have started together to clean up Gulf waters and shorelines. Read more about S.P.L.A.Sh here.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the cleanup! The birds and other wildlife appreciate it! We picked up 63 bags of trash totaling an impressive 981 lbs!

Due to the increase in coronavirus cases, we will not be able to hold a beach cleanup in December. However, we are encouraging volunteers to pick up trash on their own this month! You can do it by yourself or with a safe group.

We will require a bit of data collection at your cleanup (time, place, weather etc.), so please contact csilling@gcbo.org to get more information.

We hope to see you in January!

This season is a favorite for many bird watchers because its time for Christmas Bird Counts, or CBC as they are often called. This year with Covid19 many have been cancelled and many that are running are not allowing any new participants, and all requiring strict Covid guidelines. It would take quite an article to list them all here with their particular info, so we will leave you with the web link to Houston Audubon’s CBC list for all Texas regions. Here you can find info about every Texas CBC along with contact info. If you get to participate we hope you have a great time with tons of birds to count!

Texas is blessed with wintering hummingbirds, and here on the upper Texas coast we have a mix of some Ruby-throats, maybe a few Black-chinned, definitely some Rufous and Allen’s, a Buff-bellied or two here and there, and at times a few western species such as Anna’s and Broad-tailed, amongst others. We always leave our feeders up all year long here.

That takes a lot of sugar… a LOT! And we could use your help with a Christmas present for the hummers. We could use any amount of donated sugar you could help us with. We go through a lot of pounds of it!  Regular plain white sugar, and you can bring it by GCBO during the week, or contact us and we can make arrangements. Thank you!

The Wireless Alliance is a company that recovers and recycles cell phones, smart phones, tablets, and other consumer recyclables.

We will be collecting these items for Wireless Alliance to keep them out of landfills as well as raise money for our conservation efforts. If you have old technology such as a phone, charger, tablet, or other accessories, consider bringing it to GCBO!

Get our first Hummingbird calendar in the nature store now! It has 12 gorgeous Texas hummer pictures by Mike Williams, GCBO’s Board President. They are printed and bound by Mike with a plastic spiral spine in case you want to frame the pictures. Price will be $20.00 and will be a limited run by Mike, with all proceeds going to GCBO. If you want one or more, give us a call or go to our online Nature Store and buy them there! https://www.gcbo.org/product/2021-hummingbird-calendar/

Once again, we have had to postpone our Brew on the Bayou event in light of the COVID 19 situation. The safety of our volunteers, visitors, and staff is the most important thing to us, so we will continue to put that first! We hope to see everyone on November 6 for brews, birds, music, and friends!

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!

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.

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.

Telephone: 979-480-0999 | Email Us