High Island

Today we are travelling to High Island, Texas, a slight hump of land sitting on the Gulf Coast about 35 miles north east of Galveston. To get there we will first take a ferry ride across the mouth of Galveston Bay to Port Bolivar. Here we are following the Borden truck onto the ferry. Coincidently we are looking for a crossword - clue: condensed milk pioneer Gail. The answer is “Borden”! When a day starts like that you just know it has great promise.

It only takes a few minutes to cross then we are off along the coastal road. Its a beautiful sunny day with only a few puffy clouds building in the north. The highway runs right along the ocean and we can see tanker traffic heading to and from the refineries at Galveston.

I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but this part of Texas is FLAT. Really flat. If you had a had a three story house you could see Cuba from the roof (rhymes with woof).

We are headed for High Island, so named because it rises 11.6 metres above the surrounding land. It is a salt dome, an expression of a much deeper layer of salt and is the highest point of land on the coast from Mobile, Alabama to the Yucatan. I wasn't impressed by the rise in elevation (think a three story apartment building) until it was pointed out to me that 30 feet might just save your life in a hurricane storm surge. The island is covered in scrubby woods consisting largely of Live Oaks and is home to about 500 people. It is also the temporary home of 300,000,000 birds for a few weeks each year.

Wikipedia does a great job of describing it:

High Island, with its substantial wooded areas unlike elsewhere on the upper Texas coast, is a natural refuge for migrating birds making their perilous way across the Gulf of Mexico from the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico into their northern summering grounds in the United States and Canada. During this spring migration, the birds must navigate the hundreds of miles of overwater flight to find refuge and food on their journey northward. During a normal spring migration, birders from around the world can find concentrated and high numbers of species of migratory birds in High Island that winter in southern Mexico, Central America, and South America, and make their summer breeding homes in the north.

The most spectacular bird viewing is during a spring northerly storm, which causes a "fall out" at High Island. During these storms, the migrating birds encounter strong head winds and a prolonged and energy-draining flight over the gulf. Every bird that comes off the Gulf near High Island is then exhausted, and immediately seeks a dry land perch. In such conditions, the beaches of the Bolivar Peninsula can be covered with tens of thousands of birds. With its wooded areas and more ample feeding opportunities, almost every tree and open space in High Island is covered with exhausted birds.

This short stretch of coast has the happy circumstance of being the first landfall for both the Central and Mississippi Flyways and the concentration and variety of birds is unmatched anywhere in North America. The beaches of the Bolivar Peninsula are thick with shore birds and the woods are teeming with Baltimore Orioles this morning. Birder heaven!

We spend the day in the four sanctuaries in High Island all owned and run by the Audubon Society. One of our favourite places is The Rookery, an easily viewed nesting site for Roseate Spoonbills, cormorants, herons, and egrets. This link provides a good overview:

Smith Oaks Rookery, High Island, Texas

Great White Egrets at The Rookery, Smith Oaks Sanctuary, High Island, Texas

We’ll spend two or three days in this area with the town of Beaumont as our base. It’s time to head there and find a place to eat and sleep. Tomorrow we’ll take a little tour of Beaumont before checking out more wildlife sanctuaries.