Birds of southeast Texas in photos

Photos taken along highway near Anahuac Wildlife Refuge

One of North America’s renowned bird migration and bird watching areas is strangely silent. Blame Hurricane Ike.
“We had red-winged blackbirds, sparrows, a bunch of migrating birds,” recalled Ernest Stone, 75, leaning on his cane and surveying debris on the cratered moonscape that used to be the family beach house on Bolivar Peninsula.

Love personal electronics? Link up with the like minded at PEbuzz
“I haven’t seen a pigeon in a while,” he said. “Seagulls. You could always go out and throw a piece of bread and the seagulls would come.”

Not now.

“Nothing,” his wife, Jimmie, said. “Zero.”

The same could be said for their home and beachfront community of Gilchrist, where little is standing three weeks after Ike roared ashore with 110 mph winds, a 12-foot storm surge and waves up to 26 feet. The few palm trees or patches of grass, nearly unrecognizable amid the shells and dried mud, have turned a lifeless yellow brown, killed by sea water. [read more Beaches once thick with birds quiet thanks to Ike]

But it wasn’t just the wind and rain that caused the problems. . .

Hurricane Ike’s winds and massive waves destroyed oil platforms, tossed storage tanks and punctured pipelines. The environmental damage only now is becoming apparent: At least a half million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico and the marshes, bayous and bays of Louisiana and Texas, according to an analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.

In the days before and after the deadly storm, companies and residents reported at least 448 releases of oil, gasoline and dozens of other substances into the air and water and onto the ground in Louisiana and Texas. The hardest hit places were industrial centers near Houston and Port Arthur, Texas, as well as oil production facilities off Louisiana’s coast, according to the AP’s analysis. . .
[ read more AP Investigation: Ike environmental toll apparent]

The Houston Audubon Society needs volunteers to help clean up many of the coastal santuaries. If you can help, they’d appreciate it.

See also:
Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge badly damaged by Ike

Back yard photos, The Woodlands, TX