Texas - oystercatcher update

It's no secret - I'm a HUGE fan of the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory - they have fantastic outreach programs to familiarize the public with research (not sure if the Xtreme Hummingbird Xtravaganza has been covered on this blog before, but it needs to happen!)

There's a great effort put forth by GCBO to track American Oystercatchers along the Upper and Central Texas coast, the e-mail below is from one of the staff biologists who has made the project very approachable by folks who see any of 'their' birds. It's so refreshing to not only have the transparency of "this project exists" but also "here's where to look up more information" - it's wonderful for the curious!

Without further delay...

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13 August 2012

TexBirders,
As many of you know, GCBO has an ongoing project studying American Oystercatchers on the Upper and Central coasts. The breeding season is over for this species now and so they will begin to wander between now and December/January when they pair up and start defending their territories again. This year we had a Texas State student working on the upper coast and a Texas A&M student working on the central coast. All told we have now banded 125 adult and 58 chick oystercatchers. Chicks can be told from full adults by having black on their bills. Chicks from last year still have a small amount of black on their bill so if you look closely you should be able to tell them apart from full adults still. I would greatly appreciate everyone checking the legs of oystercatchers that they see for bands. They are banded on each leg above the ankle (what appears to be knee) with identical maroon color bands that have two codes on them. The codes are either two numbers, two letters, or a letter and a number combination. Again, the codes on each leg are identical. These bands can be hard to see unless you look closely. I'd appreciate any sightings of banded oystercatchers be sent to me. Photos are greatly appreciated. This helps is track movements of this species during the non-breeding season and also chick movements which are very important for conservation. You can see what the bands look like and read about this project on our website here:
http://www.gcbo.org/default.aspx/MenuItemID/246/MenuGroup/Home.htm

There is also a link to a spreadsheet which has information about where each bird was banded.
Thanks everyone.
Sue
Susan A. Heath, PhD
Gulf Coast Bird Observatory
103 Hwy 332 West
Lake Jackson, TX 77566
979-480-0999
www.gcbo.org