Winnie Burkett Interview, Part 1 of 2

DT: My name is David Todd. I'm here for the Conservation History Association of Texas. It's October 14, 1999 and we are in Smith Point, Texas at the Hawk Watch Tower and we've got the good luck to be visiting with Winnie Burkett who is the Houston Audubon Warden here, and...

0:01:43 - 2062

WB: Actually I'm Houston Audubon Sanctuary Manager. Here I'm just a volunteer for the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory.

DT: Well, she's obviously has many talents and many jobs and many hats. And thanks for wedging us in between all those obligations. I'd like to start by talking to you about your childhood and maybe you could tell us about any early influences, parents, teachers, friends, that may have inspired you to be interested in the outdoors and conservation.

0:02:18 - 2062 WB: Well, I was always interested in the out-of-doors. I was one of those kids that grew up in a mud puddle, kind of, catching turtles and, you know, playing with Honeysuckle. I don't know if you've ever played with Honeysuckle. But we used to do that a lot, make caves and stuff out of it. And, my grandmother was a bird watcher in New York state, where I spent my very youngest years. And she said I started being a bird watcher when I was four. But I don't remember. I just always remember being interested in the out-of-doors and always remember being interested in birds and turtles and frogs and things. So we moved to Florida in 1950 and that was when Florida was just-we always say we had the best part of Florida. Because it was accessible and it was just full of wildlife.

And that-as I grew up in Florida and watched it all go away I got more and more concerned about, you know, who's going to take care of it. And the fact that, in Florida, for a long time, there were not environmentalists. And it was, you know, nobody wanted to hear about it. So, my father was involved in starting a nature center down there. And that's basically how I learned about environmentalism and getting involved trying to see if we couldn't change things. With-which, at that time in Florida, you could not change anything. Nobody wanted to hear about it. The whole economy was-was dedicated to development. So it was-that's basically what formed me into a conservationist, I guess.

DT: Well, you talked about what formed you. It sounds like it was a few people that had a major impact. Could you talk about your grandmother and what you remember about her and her interest in the outdoors?

0:04:00 - 2062 WB: Well, my grandmother was-was the original little old lady in tennis shoes kind of bird watcher. She used to go on a lot of birding trips with her friends. And sometimes would take me bird watching, but never on her birding trips because they didn't want children. But they moved to Florida eventually and so she would-she and I did a lot of roaming around together, early because she needed company and later because I was the person who could drive when she no longer felt real comfortable driving. So we used to do a lot of birding-bird watching together.

DT: Can you describe some of the places that she used to like going birding in New York state and elsewhere?

0:04:42 - 2062 WB: Well, she lived on Long Island and one of the main places was going to places like Jamaica Bay. You know, that's right near John F. Kennedy Airport. And places like Jones Beach, I don't know if you know Jones Beach. That's one other place that she did a lot of birding in the winter. All those beach areas. Let me think of some of the other places we used to go. I don't know they-we used to go to the beach alot. And she and my mother did a-when they were doing some of the early work on migration-they used to do-put telescopes on the moon, you know, and watch the-the birds fly across the moon at night. And they did counts on how many birds were migrating on any particular night. She and my mother did that on the beach one night and almost got arrested. Because the police wouldn't believe that, that's what they were really and truly what they were doing. So...

DT: Did you grandmother talk much about it being sort of a solitary pursuit, or a pursuit that at least some people, such as the police, didn't understand?

0:05:46 - 2062 WB: She don't-I don't remember her talking about it very much. It was just one of the things that she did. And you know, when that happened it was one of the-they-they laughed about it. I never remember, until I got older, thinking about it as something peculiar. It was, you know, unless you're around peers that look at those things and judge them peculiar, they're just things that go on in your family.

DT: Speaking of your family, could you tell us about your father and his interest in conservation?

0:06:15 - 2062 WB: Well, my father was a-a plumbing contractor. And he never looked at birds, growing up, because his mother did. And, you know, mostly you don't do the things that your mother does. In fact you look down on the things your mother does. But, my father liked renting a boat. And when we were in Florida we had a little skiff. And he used to run around and take us fishing and go to the beach, at the areas where, you know, you could only get by boat. And so my grandmother was involved in a research project that-the Dry Tortugas. They take groups-they used to take groups of people down there to band Sooty Terms. They started doing that in the 40s and it was stopped by World War II.

But, then they came back and started doing it again in the 60s, I think it was. They needed somebody to run the boat down there. So dad went down to run the boat. Well, here were all these scientists interested in all these things. And my father's very intelligent. And-and he would get into discussions. And this one guy, Ralph Schreiber, I don't know if you've every heard of Ralph Schreiber, he was a really famous ornithologist, did a lot of work on Pelican populations and also on Christmas Island out in the Pacific.

Well, Ralph started asking dad, well what was happening to Pelicans in South Florida and what did he know about this and what did he know about that. So dad went back home, which was Naples, Florida then, that's where I spent most of my growing up time, with assignments. You know, count Pelicans once a week. Do this, do that. And that got him kind of hooked in-on birding. And his-what evolved out of that was he started censusing projects then. First just on Pelicans, but then he figured as long as he was counting Pelicans, he should be counting everything else he-he saw.

So, he started doing beach counts of things like Sanderlings and Willets and Terns and stuff. And then he got more involved with Audubon and the guy that was the part-time Warden in that area had a heart attack. And dad applied for the job and didn't get it that time. But they had hired somebody else I think who turned out to be an alcoholic, and he didn't last very long. So, the next time around dad got that job, part-time. And what he would do is go out to the colonial water bird islands and check and make sure things were all right and doing that kind of thing. And, then eventually what he wound up doing was doing that job full-time and-and retiring from plumbing.

DT: Was his interest academic or was it out of some sort of concern for the changes affecting these birds?

0:08:50 - 2062 WB: Well, he saw the changes affecting South Florida. I mean we c-it was very easy to see the changes affecting South Florida, because it-Naples went from being a little tiny town to this, to, you know, huge subdivision after huge subdivision after huge subdivision. And he saw the fact that-that birds would be a good environmental indicator of what was happening. And, of course, at the same time the Everglades were dying.

You know, we had that big-the big problem with the Everglades. Well, between 1950 and 1975 or 80, 90% of the wading birds in the Everglades disappeared. Because of the change in water regimes, you know, they put the big flood control things and water control things in and put big ditches. And what they would do is-is, the Everglades used to be flooded in the-in the summer and then in the winter it would dry down. Well, the birds had adapted to breeding during this dry down-time.

And what that means is that the food sources are con-are concentrated. Instead of the whole Everglades being all covered with water, like it is in the summer, there's just areas that have water in them. And all the fish that were everywhere concentrate in those areas. And that was the way the birds could breed was that that would concentrate enough fish so they could feed their young. So when the Army Corps of Engineers and the Flood Control District started managing that water, and flooding at the wrong times, the birds weren't successful breeding anymore. And so he-he's been counting, doing censuses for twenty-five years. He got-my dad gets into things.

He gets really deep into it. But he started doing the censuses and trying to tell what was happening, how you could judge what was happening by what the birds were doing. And you can-really kind of shows a lot of interesting information. And he was on the-the County Conservation Commission. You know how a lot of counties have conservation commissions. But this county, Collier County never listened to their conservation commission. So after like ten years on it he got off. He said it just wasn't worth it any more. But, what he's mainly-he says now he's-he's documenting the decline of birds in Florida. So that's what he's been doing.

DT: So he continues to see a decline?

0:11:14 - 2062 WB: Oh yeah. Well, particularly on the-on the west coast because of the continued development. And there's-even though they're trying to change what they're doing in the Everglades, on the west coast they're still developing. Which means more drainage ditches taking water away faster. Which means that the mangrove swamps aren't-the salinity's changed so the crabs have changed, the shrimp have changed, the fish have changed. And all those things really affect everything. You know, they affect the bird population, they affect the fish population.

DT: I understand that as you grew up you went on to college and majored in Biology, with a concentration in Ornithology. What caused you to choose that area?

0:12:03 - 2062 WB: Well, I always wanted to do field work in the tropics. I was going to go work in the-in the rain forests. I didn't think I'd ever get married so, 'cause I didn't date much in high school, 'cause I was pretty weird, you know, there's not too many-too many girls that want to be out wandering around swamps and things. So, I wanted to be a field research person. And so I did major in Orn-I majored in-in Biology with a-a specialization in Ornithology. But I met this guy and didn't-didn't do that.

DT: I understand that you moved to New York, is that right, soon after college?

0:12:43 - 2062 WB: Well, no, my husband was in petroleum, so we, first, we moved to Louisiana, yeah. We lived in Lafayette, Louisiana. And I continued to do-my Ornithology Professor from Florida State had-was doing work on trans-Gulf migration. And he wanted censuses done along the coast, as close to the coast as you could get in Spring and Fall. You had to spent like ten hours a week in the field. And so I put my kid in the back of the-I had a baby then-I put my kid in the back of the car and we went off and counted birds. And that was real interesting because it makes you get to know areas better. And, we did move a lot. We went from-from Louisiana to California to Hou-back to Houston, we came to Houston in the 70s. And then we lived in New England for about fifteen years, in Connecticut. But I...

DT: Can you describe some of the areas that you've birded in Louisiana?

0:13:48 - 2062 WB: Well, we would go down, you know route 87 that goes through the marsh? You go through like Grand Chenier and-and all those kind of places. We-we just-I would go down and I would look for every wood lot I could find. Or any place where there were bushes and trees and-and spent time censusing birds in those areas that might be migrants. Also I did shore bird counts. And, for a while, he wanted us to do analysis of Grackle populations. Because Boat-Tailed Grackles in Texas have brown eyes. Boat-Tail Grackles in Florida have yellow eyes. And those two populations meet in Louisiana. But, we found out there were flocks of tens of thousands of Grackles in Louisiana and it was impossible. There was no way you could get a good look at their eyes.

DT: Speaking of Grackles, I've heard some people refer to them as trash birds. First of all, if so, can you talk about some of the birds that have become more common, and maybe why that is?

0:14:51 - 2062 WB: It's real interesting that people tend not to like the birds that are most like people. And Grackles are one of those birds that are very adaptable the way people are. And when they see a good thing, they take advantage of it, just the way people do. And we've provided a lot of habitat for Grackles inadvertently. Because these birds like to nest and roost in places that are predator-free. And we've put in walls with big parking lots that have nice, shady trees. And these mall parking lots are predator-free areas, because it's all this open area, right, where the-Raccoons and Possums can't easily cross it. And there's no coyotes or-or foxes or anything. So all these Grackles can breed in these parking lots. And we provide McDonalds, so there's always a food source.

So, you know, they're really smart birds. And the same thing's happened with crows. Crows are very good at-at taking advantage of people. Starlings are the same way. And any time birds are like this, people don't like those birds. It's just like Laughing Gulls. A lot of people don't like Laughing Gulls. But, they're smart in the same way. You know, they found garbage dumps. They learned about paper bags. You know, if you leave a paper bag on the beach the Grackles-I mean the-the Laughing Gulls will tear into the paper bag because they know that paper bags usually equal food. So, yeah, they're adaptable, working into niches that no other birds are using. The garbage niches.

DT: Something else that occurs to me is that from the time that you spent with you grandmother to work that you did with your father and then some of your adventures in Louisiana, it seems like you've had a continuing interest in censusing and looking at migrations. Can you talk about why you had those interest and what you found?

0:16:50 - 2062 WB: Well, that-the censusing thing is partly because my father is so intense on censusing. And doing migrations, particularly, was because I had a Professor that was so involved in migration. And, you know, if you're around people that find something very interesting, often you can start to see the interesting parts of it. And so, that-that's one of the things that's just been ongoing. You know, every place in the country you live, it's different, as far as migration goes.

We also were involved in banding. My grandmother was a bird bander. And so you see-you see seasonal fluctuation with that too. And that's always pretty neat to see how things change. 'Cause she doesn't always, you know, when you're-when you're out looking at birds, you don't always see everything that's there. If you put a mist net up also, then you get to see a lot more of the birds that are there, because some things are secretive and you don't see them out.

DT: Could you talk about some of your trips to go and band? How do you do that?(Misc.)

0:18:00 - 2062 WB: The most interesting banding thing I was involved with was I went on the Dry Tortugas trips, one of them. And, I don't know if you've ever been to the Dry Tortugas, do you know about the Dry Tortugas? Okay, they're islands off of-coral islands off of Key West, sixty miles west of Key West, and the largest fort-the largest brick fort in the Eastern United States is out there, Fort Jefferson. It was the Civil War fort that they never finished. And, there was a prison for a while too. Doctor Mudd was there after. John Wilkes Booth was-he treated John Wilkes Booth. And-and so, it's a really fascinating place. So what you do is you go out there with Park Service people, or what we did. We went-went out there. There were about, I guess about fifteen people that went out.

And every day you get up really early and they first thing you do in the morning is band chicks. You start at dawn and the-the Sooty Terns nest all over the island. And they nest on the ground, they lay one egg and have one chick. So you go out and you-you capture chicks in one way or the other. Some times we built little fences with corals. And you'd herd the chicks into-into the corals. And sometimes you just pick them up. So that's what we would do in the morning until 10 o'clock. And then we'd go in and have breakfast. And during the middle of the day you don't do anything, because if you disturb the birds during the heat of the day, they have the chance of being-becoming overheated and dying. In the evening we'd set up mist nets and catch adults.

And that's how they found out that they live to be a very long t-live-live to be very old. And they don't start nesting, and the Sooty Terns don't start nesting until they're five or six years old. So they've-this project they found out a lot of interesting things about the Tern. But, while I was down there we had a hurricane. And that was what made it even more interesting. Hurricane Alma came right over the Tortugas. And the Coast Guard wanted to take us out and take us to-to Key West. But Key West it was all wooden buildings. And here we are in this fort with seven-foot thick walls. We figured, you know, not anyplace you're going to be safer than a fort with seven foot thick walls. But it was neat, 'cause we could watch the birds during the storm and see what happened, you know, to all these tens of thousands of birds that were nesting there. So it was pretty fascinating.

DT: And how would you actually go about banding these birds? What would you use and where would you put the bands?

0:20:35 - 2062 WB: Well, you have aluminum bands that you get from the Fish and Wildlife Service. They have a special office that they called the-the Banding Lab. And each one of the bands has an individual number on it. And you take a pair of pliers that have-they have-there are special pliers made just so-for banding birds. And you take a bird in one hand, and you usually take the right leg. And you put the band on the-on the right leg.

DT: What chance to do you have of recovering a bird that has once been banded?

0:21:06 - 62 WB: About one percent. About one percent. Except in a project like this where they're-the-one of the things dad did when he-he went for many years to the Dry Tortugas, after he got addicted, is that he worked with a hand-a net with a really long handle. It was like, you know, the kind of net that you catch fish in when you-when you reel them in and then you scoop them up in the net. We took a net like that and put it on a very long handle. And he would look for banded birds in the sky. And then he would take the net and catch them. Because after a while the older birds get net-wary, they casee the net and they know what it means. So, to get information off the really old birds, which is what you ultimately want, you want to see how long they lived, in what kind of condition they are, how often they're molting and all those things. You have to figure out a way to catch those older birds. So that's what he would do is take this long net and "foop" them out of the air.

DT: You mentioned that he went to the Tortugas many times after he got addicted to birding. And I'm curious if you could talk a little about the compulsion and the conviction that many bird watchers seem to have. It really seems to consume people's lives and interests. What is it about it that is so appealing to people, do you think?

0:22:29 - 2062 WB: Well, you know, what is it that-that gets people addicted to golf? And what is it that gets people addicted to sitting in front of a television set and watching somebody with a little football? And, it's whatever it is that addicts people to different things. Birding's one of those things. And s-it's interesting. I always talk about there's a lot of different ways you play that game, the birding game.

Some people are-are listers. They go out and they want to see as many different kinds of birds as they can see. And, they have their long list. And if somebody reports a Blue Mockingbird in Harlingen, everybody's gone zooming down-these listers have zoomed down to Harlingen to see the Blue Mockingbird. But, and then there's people that are backyard feeder birds, you know, they don't-they don't care about going anywhere to see birds. They're happy just to look out their window and see their Chickadees and Titmice.

Then there's all kinds of levels in between. There's the people that-that have lists for their own county. There are people that just use it as an excuse to go from one area to the other, you know, the birding festival kind of thing. The people would go to the Hummerbird Festival. And people would go to-to that tropical festival they have in the Valley. And, so there's all different, you know, levels of how deeply involved people get in bird watching.

I never was-I enjoy seeing different birds. But I won't drive to El Paso to see something, you know. I may go to El Paso and bird, but I won't-some people will go and spend a weekend, you know. Drive over one day, drive back the next day. They've seen their Tufted Flycatcher and that's that. But, I really enjoy the whole-the whole-the whole aspect of the life of the bird. You know, the-not as much going out to see how many species you can get. But I get a real kick out of, like, the summer we went to Alaska. And I got to see a lot of the ducks and things we have all summer-all winter, up there with chicks and ducklings and in little ponds and swamps in the places that they live in the summertime. I thought that was really neat.

DT: Have you taken many birding trips?

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WB: I've taken, well, I don't know what many is. I've...

DT: Maybe you could talk about some of the highlights of your birding trips.

0:24:49 - 2062 WB: I've taken quite a few trips that have-that we've done a lot of birding. I think the only one I ever took that was just only a birding trip was we went to-I went to Costa Rica with Wings, which was one of the, you know, birding tour groups. But, I've-I've birded in lots of places. We went to Peru on a natural history tour and there were a lot of interesting birds there. In fact, I saw too many churches and not enough birds there. But that was-that was very interesting. I don't know if you've traveled much. There are some countries that-that are hard to travel in and you don't feel comfortable. And there's other places like Costa Rica, where you go, and it's-it's, you know, people are very welcoming and you don't feel, you know, in any danger or uncomfortable.

DT: Well, I understand that bird watching and the whole phenomena of "ecotourism" has become a very popular and profitable thing for many communities. Could you discuss the impact on areas in Texas?

0:26:05 - 2062 WB: Well, the-it's-I think that probably the ecotourism has been very important for these communities for a long while. And it's just been in the last couple of years that people have tried to show the communities how important it is. That, you know, the Bolivar Peninsula where our sanctuaries are, High Island and Bolivar Flats, has always had a lot of birders in the spring. And, but I don't think they ever thought about the real economic impact. I mean, of course, they-everybody knows there's more money. And the motel owner, of course, would know that it made an economic impact. But, the-the government officials in Galveston County wouldn't recognize that it made an important impact. So part of the big thing has-push has been to make government officials aware, and chambers of commerce aware that these communities had these resources. And so consequently, not only are they making the money that they used to make, but some of them are starting to advertise. Like Port Arthur has a big billboards now about birding Port Arthur. And, good Lord, I don't know why anybody'd want to. But-but, at least they're trying to bring people into their community to do other things besides, you know, the standard tourist kind of things.

DT: When you talk about ecotourism in a popular place like High Island, or in the Valley, are you talking about hundreds of people, thousands of people? Are we talking about thousands of dollars, millions of dollars?

0:27:38 - 2062 WB: We're talking about millions of dollars. And, places like the Valley, I think they've figured out the impact of one rare bird down there. And it's interesting, like in Galveston, there was a Kelp Gull, and that's a South American bird. And one woman who lives in Galveston kept a guest book, kind of. She would drive down there to the beach where the Gull was to get people to sign this book, every day, to find out how many people had come. Well, she had, I think it was, two or three thousand sign the book. But how many people came when she wasn't there, we don't know. But the local state representatives said to me at a meeting, she said, "I just wish we could find more of them-them Gulls like that, that bring all those people. It's sure easier than trying to do any other economic development." So, they do become aware of it.

And when you start to talk about, you know, people coming to Galveston to see a bird, talking about three meals and a motel and, you know, rented cars and motel and-and airlines and just, people really do come from a long ways away. So, in a place like the Valley which has so many unusual birds, it's millions and millions of dollars. And they're capitalizing on that. You probably know about the-the World Bird Center that they're going to put down there. And all kinds of facilities to try to attract more people and also to try to raise the community's awareness. Because ultimately ecotourism is wonderful, but the great thing about ecotourism is that you make a community aware of the fact that their community, as it is, with its natural attributes, not with malls, not with, you know, fancy roads, not with big movie theatres, the community with trees and grass and shrubs, that's the valuable part. And that's the only way we're going to get habitats saved in a lot of these areas, is for them to realize that-that the natural things are important to-to bring money into their community.

DT: I noticed that you had been a gardener for part of your career. Are there things an individual can do if they realize that their community benefits from ecotourism that will support birds and butterflies?

0:30:06 - 2062 WB: (talking over David) Well, Rockport. Rockport's a perfect example of what the community, you know, the people in the community have done doing Hummingbird gardens. And the-the reason Rockport always had so many Hummingbirds was they used to have fields and fields and fields of wildflowers. I mean, we would all have fields of wildflowers if people didn't mow. And, in the Fall the Hummingbirds would come through and they feel they concentrate in Rockport because they jump across the Gulf that little ways from Rockport to s-to Mexico. So, as they developed Rockport, of course, they took the fields of flowers away. So people have compensated for that by putting in big Hummingbird gardens in their yards and lots of feeders. So they have all these Hummingbirds, you know, and then they have their Hummingbird Festival, which brings in millions of dollars to the community. So, there are things that individuals can do, you know, even in their own yards to help.

DT: Can you describe your own yard and what you've done there for wildscaping?

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WB: Well, it depends on which yard, you see. We have-we live in Friendswood, in a regular subdivision so the front yard's kind of tame and the back yard's pretty wild. I've just let things-I planted a-it was all St. Augustine grass and I planted a lot of native trees and shrubs and-and let the-the Swamp Sunflowers and the Ragweed and stuff go ahead and grow because that's all things that supply food for birds. Also, we put a little pond in, but unfortunately, summers like this it doesn't stay wet, you can't afford to keep it full. But-but we have a beach house on the Bolivar Peninsula. And, I don't understand people with beach houses. Everybody in our neighborhood, we have a unrestricted neighborhood there. It's not like Friendswood where you have to keep your front lawn, you know, a certain length. Everybody there doesn't have to do that. They don't have to do anything. But they mow and keep their yards just like town, except for us. And my yard, we mow once a year. And by doing that we keep the grass and the stuff down enough that the yard's just wildflowers, all year long. Gaillardia. Right now it's the Lazy Daisy, the tall native sunflower that's, it's just solid flowers.

DT: And this attracts birds, butterflies, Hummingbirds?

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WB: (talking over David) Oh, yup, yup. Hummingbirds and butterflies. I have lots of butterflies.

DT: What do your neighbors think?

0:32:34 - 2062

WB: I don't ask them.

DT: Let's go back to Rockport and their experience with the Hummer Festival. Can you tell a little about how some of these birding and ecotourism festivals got started?

0:32:51 - 2062

WB: Well, a lot of them were started by individual people. I think that the Hummingbird Festival, which was Texas' first festival, bird festival, was started by Jesse Grantham. Did-did you know Jesse? And-and he had the idea that since the community had so many Hummingbirds and people liked Hummingbirds, that they ought to have some of a festival. It started off as just 250 people and I think they now get 5000 people. And, so it's just people with ideas. Jesse was a really good one for seeing how we can do things that engage ordinary people. Because that's what we have to do to succeed in conservation. I mean, those of us that are interested in birds, per se, are only a small drop in the bucket. And the people we need to engage in-in-in understanding the plight of birds and the plight of-of the natural world is all those other people. You know, that-that like Hummingbirds, they're not going to be bird watchers, but they sure like Hummingbirds. And if you can just let them know, you know, what a Hummingbird has to go through to survive, that they go from here to Mexico and back and they need plants and everything all along the way. Those people will be, if they like Hummingbirds and want to see them in their yards, will tend to-to lean more towards doing stuff in their yards and in their communities that will help continue Hummingbirds' journeys.

DT: I'd like to ask you another question about ecotourism, if you don't mind. There seem to be a lot of advantages to it, trying to educate people about the natural world and ways to protect it. But, like a lot of things, it seems like you can over-do it. And I'm curious if you can see any potential down-side to development that would take advantage of natural resources. I give, as an example, I guess, the controversy over building a conservation lodge on Matagorda Island. Could you tell us what you think about that, and that sort of issue?

0:35:02 - 2062 WB: Well, that definitely has a-it can-it could go the wrong way. And that's one of the things they've been worrying about is-is that it, you know, too much development of eco-tourist facilities will harm places. And I think the thing about the Matagorda Island Conservation Lodge was that they were going to need to do a lot of stuff, and put a lot more people out there and wanted to be able to take more vehicles and more, I mean, it was just going to take away from that being such a special place. And, I think there were other things involved. I don't remember. I was-that was-somebody else was fighting that battle. I didn't get into it. But, we definitely have got to think about the resources. And, you know, a lot of organizations like Nature Conservancy has really important properties in Arizona that they limit the number of people that can come. They have-allow a certain number of people on the trails at a time. You get a pass, you know, your little ticket and you have to turn-turn it in when you get back off the trail. Just so that there's not so many people in there that they're disturbing the wildlife or making too big an impact on things. And a lot of us are going to have to think about that. We're going to have to-we may have to cross that eventually at High Island. Because we get a lot of people there and-and our whole goal in developing the sanctuaries the way we've developed them is that we're trying to make it so that we can put people in there and they can see birds, and they don't disturb the birds too much. And that's got to be all of our goal. I mean, people get mad at me because I got rid of their favorite trail. But, you know, if you have-the woods are all full of trails. And there's no way for the birds to get away from you and have some place quiet to eat and drink. And basically if they're coming back from going across the Gulf of Mexico, that's what they need most is some place to-to quietly eat and drink. So...

DT: You mentioned High Island. Can you talk about some of the sanctuaries that you're managing?

0:37:08 - 2062 WB: Well, High Island's a really interesting story in that most Audubon Chapters don't get involved in land ownership. And, they just don't have the resources. And there's-and in Audubon Chapters there's not always the continuity of people that they feel that they can-can have sanctuaries. So, in the 80s Houston Audubon was concerned about what would happen at High Island because it was such a good place to see birds. And, Louis Smith, who owned a four-acre tract there was selling his property. And Houston Audubon purchased it and took a mortgage out. And, oh, there was so much controversy. The Board ha-passed resolutions that they couldn't use any of the organization's money to buy this land. They had to raise separate funds. And so they had, you know, cake sales and they did various and sundry things. But no-nothing raised a whole lot of money. And they had paid way too much money for this piece of property, is what I think anyway. But, so they started charging admission. And that was a very novel idea at the time. In fact, a lot of people objected to that. But, that's the way that they paid the mortgage off. And the money that we still make from admissions has enabled us to do a lot of other things.

And, then, in the late 80s, we had a Board member named Steve Gast. And Steve was a "wheeler-dealer" from Phillips. And we had-someone had donated a piece of property and then had decided that they didn't-not on High Island, but north of Houston, but this-they decided they didn't want to-they wanted the piece of property back. So they gave us a $100,000 for the piece of property. And Steve knew enough about matching grants and all this other stuff, that he put together what's called the High Island Initiative. And what that was, was an initiative that had a three part, if I remember correctly, three goals, it was to increase the Audubon holdings in High Island, it was to develop those holdings, and it was to create the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory. So Steve approached Amoco, who owned a lot of property in High Island about there-the property that they didn't want anymore. And Amoco agreed to donate, at that time, about 140 acres. This-and we also, at that time, purchased the rest of Smith Oaks. We had just started purchasing Smith Oaks, which is an 11.5-acre tract that was all hundred year old - plus Oak Trees. So, he put together this package where we purchased the rest of Smith Oaks. We got this land from Amoco. We got grants from National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. And we got grants from Fish and Wildlife Service. And we got grants from Texas Parks and Wildlife. And those were all grants to either enhance the property or found the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory - start-up money. So we were able to take this lan-all of the sudden we went from four acres to 150 acres. And we had money to put in boardwalks. We had money to build fences, so we could keep cows out of sensitive habitat, because all the area had been grazed. We had money to enhance habitat, which meant we planted trees in places that needed trees. And we did some

0:40:46 - 62 prairie restoration projects. And we put signs up. And we built a kiosk so we could get our visi-our volunteers who take the money in for-for the admissions, out of the rain. We just-we had the-the ability to get a lot of things done, you know, right-right away, which really made it quite a big complex, you know, for a little community. 'Cause High Island's what a mile-about a-about a square mile.

DT: What was it about High Island and Smith Oaks that was so appealing to the Houston Audubon Society?

0:41:21 - 2062 WB: Well, High Island is a migrant trap in the spring. And what that means is that after these birds cross the Gulf, and what they do in the springtime is a lot of the small birds migrate at night. And they start-they leave Yucatan about-just about dark, about a half an hour after sunset, they think. And it takes 'em eighteen hours to cross the Gulf of Mexico. Now, most these birds have no trouble flying those eighteen hours. In fact, they go ahead and they fly 'till dark, usually. They-they cross the-they cross the coast at-at around noon or one o'clock. And, about dark they reach the Big Thicket area, where that's the best feeding, you know, 'cause it's continuous woods. Well, some of the birds don't have the resources, haven't stored up enough fat, 'cause that's what migrants do, they double their weight, add fat on under their skin and they metabolize that fat while they're flying, into energy. So, those birds need some place to stop along the coast. And they use the Sanctuary.

But, even more important is that there are times when-when the birds leave the Yucatan, they want to come with a tail wind. They want it-the weather to be nice. Sometimes they don't know there's a cold front coming, there's a thunderstorm coming. So they hit inclement weather and then they struggle. Because they don't have enough energy to make it across the Gulf. When they do get to the shore, they're very, very tired. And they literally fall out of the air. And wind up in places like High Island, tens of thousands of birds, sometimes. And, those places become vitally important to great numbers of birds because they need a place to stop and feed and rest and get a drink. Because fresh water is just as important to them as food. After they've been out over the Gulf all these hours, they've got salt spray on their feathers. The salt accumulates, need to wash it off. A bath's an important thing. So, that's why Houston Audubon was interested in protecting property there.(Misc.)

DT: Winnie, could you tell us about some of the threats to High Island that made the Houston Audubon Society want to quickly buy it and protect it?

0:43:52 - 2062 WB: Well, I think the major threat was just the fact that someone would buy it and put houses there. When Amoco started to divest themselves of un-economical property, then they had opened up the-the process that people in the community could have bought property. But, people in High Island don't have very much money, so they didn't. But, there was always the potential that outsiders could come in and see that, you know, this little town that's right next to the Gulf that's 32 feet above sea level is unique. And, it could be developed into something really profitable. So that's one of the reasons that we decided to look at how we could-could put together significant pieces of habitat. There's still pieces of habitat there we'd like. But, not everybody wants to sell. And, so we're always looking. But that was the main thing, was just trying to protect the habitat. But the neat thing that's ha-enabled us to do, is that, because we make money there, we have seed money to do other projects.

And, one of our big projects recently, and ongoing, is protecting Bolivar Flats. And Bolivar Flats is-is unique in that it's a-a mud flat, salt marsh complex that was created by the building of the-of the North Jetty. And, it's a totally contained...

DT: ...the North Jetty on the north side of Bolivar Road?

0:45:20 - 2062

WB: (talking over David) Yup. Yup. 'Cause the, you know, the long shore current goes south there. And so when the long shore current hits the jetty, it stops and that eddies the water and the water drops its sediments. And that jetty was built a hundred years ago. And so, for a hundred years the sediments have been dropping. And, you know about all that beach erosion on the Bolivar Peninsula. Well all the eroded dirt comes down to Bolivar Flats. So it just keeps growing and growing and growing. And it supports hundreds of thousands of birds, plus makes lots of shrimp and crabs and little fish.

And, in the last couple of years, some of the property adjacent to this salt marsh, mud flat area, have gone up-come up for sale. And, we've used money from High Island's admissions as seed money to get a project going to purchase those pieces of property. We purchased 178 acres. And when we were working on that, the guy from Nature Conservancy who was helping me, had somebody come to him wanting to donate 4/7ths undivided interest and 550 acres across the street, which is just all beautiful coast prairie and marsh. This is all tied in to the Bolivar Flat system. So, instead of Nature Conservancy taking that property, we took the property. And now we're working on the last piece that's adjacent to the flats which is an 800-acre tract that the-the owners had been trying to sell 2400 acres all together. But, we didn't want the whole 2400. We just wanted this chunk. And they finally agreed to-to subdivide their property and cut that chunk out. So, now we just have to figure out how do we get money to-to buy, you know, 800 acres. But, our goal has been to try to get every piece of property we can around Bolivar Flats. Then we don't have a filling station going in where somebody's dumping, you know, antifreeze or oil or whatever, into the wetlands that drain into the marshes that ultimately feed all these birds. So...

DT: What kind of birds do you see in the Flats?

0:47:28 - 2062

WB: Well the Flats support a tremendous numbers of shore birds, things like Sandpipers and Plovers. There's probably-most of the winter there's eight to ten thousand shore birds there. Gulls and Terns use the Flats a lot. They use it as a-a resting-roosting area and a place where they can park their chicks while they feed out in the Gulf. Ducks use it. A lot of ducks feed there in the winter-time. I've seen between 600 and a thousand ducks in there. Birds like Clapper Rails and Seaside Sparrows and Night Hawks and Wilson's Plovers and Least Terns all nest there. So it's a-a very important piece of property to many, many thou-hundreds of thousands of birds.

DT: Once you're able to secure the land, how do you protect these birds that roost there or have their rookeries there?

0:48:23 - 2062 WB: Well, what we've done is we've gotten part of the beach declared a no-vehicle area. And that's helped a lot. I mean it's-it's almost impossible to keep Texans off parts of the beach. They don't believe in signs. They believe it's their God-given right to take their pickup truck everywhere and anywhere. But-but we've cut down a lot of the traffic on the part of the beach that the birds use the most, which has been a real plus. And, aside from that, there's not much more we need to do. I mean, the system runs itself very well. The-we'll, you know, get rid of Tallow Trees and-and probably burn occasionally to keep the grass in good shape. But other than that, the system works. And we just want to let it keep working. We want to cut down the disturbance the birds have as much as possible, but we still want people to be able to use it. Because it's-it's-it's a good place for Texans to learn about how wonderful Texas is.

DT: You mentioned the threat of Tallow Trees. Can you explain what your concern is?

0:49:22 - 2062 WB: Well, in wet areas, coastal areas, areas like this-we're kind of coastal here-Tallow, which in-is an invasive exotic, it came from China many, many years ago, will just take over the area. And the birds carry the seeds around and the-the trees are related to Milk Weed, so they have poisonous sap. So, insects don't use the trees. So they don't supply food that way for birds or other wildlife. When the leaves fall on the ground and they fall in ponds and things, they make the ponds very acidic. And they make it so that invertebrates can't grow in the ponds. So, they-they take good habitat and make it into almost unusable habitat. And they're-the Tallows are taking over a lot of the wet prairies all over this part of Texas, which is very sad. Because wet prairies were very important to a lot of species.

DT: You also mentioned that you're planning on burning some of the coastal prairies adjacent to the Bolivar Flats. How can that benefit the prairie?

0:50:26 - 2062 WB: Well, it keeps down, like, Chinese Tallows. And it-all these areas burned periodically, naturally. And, the thing we try to do with burning is to kind of create a natural situation. You know, man doesn't like anything to burn. Unfortunately we got-have Smokey the Bear as an emblem. And we don't want forest fires and we don't want prairie fires, unless we learn about it. And then we find out that that's always been a very important method of-of keeping habitat healthy, is that burning, periodically.

DT: You've told us a little bit about the High Island Sanctuaries that you set up for neo-tropical migrants and the Bolivar Flats that help some of the coastal shore birds. I understand that right here, where we are at Smith Point, you've got another sort of sanctuary and observatory for raptors. Can you tell about this Smith Point site?

0:51:27 - 2062 WB: Well, this is Candy Abeshier Wildlife Management Area. And, it's always been famous for a place to see a lot of raptors. And that's because Smith Point is a big funnel. And when birds come around the Gulf of Mexico, a lot of these-the raptors migrate in large groups. And they come around the Gulf of Mexico. And, a lot of times, they're funneled down Smith Point. Most of them don't like to cross the water. So what they do is they get down there and they have to decide, well is the wind good enough? Am I going to cross? Am I not going to cross? If they don't cross, they go around. So they come here to the end of the Point and they kind of mill around for a while trying to decide. So it makes it a really good place for people to come and watch hawks. It also is a good place to monitor hawk migration and the migration of lots of other birds. Because there's lots of birds that, you know, they just as soon not fly across a big bodies of water. They will if they have to. But, a lot of things like Swallows and a lot of the neotropic migrants the Gnatcatchers and stuff, the King Birds, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers get-get funneled down here.

So it's a tremendous place to see birds. In 1991 a group of people got together and started a Hawk Watch down here. And what they did is for-for four or five weeks, every day somebody would be out here counting hawks. Well, three years ago the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory got it-got more deeply involved in the Hawk Watch. And, with Hawk Watch International, they started running full-time hawk watches here from August 15th to November 15th. And these are people that are paid to be here, every day, to watch hawks. And it's very interesting. It's very educational. And-and this way we can monitor what's happening with migration.

DT: I understand that some of the hawk watchers, today, were seeing what they call a 'kettle.' Can you describe what a kettle is?

0:53:30 - 2062 WB: Well, the way a lot of these birds migrate, particularly broad-wing hawks and vultures and Swainson's Hawks is that they look for thermals. Thermals are rising columns of air and they take and-what they're trying to do is use as little energy as possible. So they take and they get into the thermals, and they rise-they go up, up, up in the thermal, to the very top. And then they glide out of the thermal to the next thermal. This way they don't use any energy at all, they just-the wind takes them. When you get a group of birds, in a thermal like that, going around and around, it's called a kettle.

DT: What kind of species and how many of them are you seeing?

0:54:10 - 2062 WB: Well, I think so far this year, 40,000 raptors have been seen here, which is not large numbers by Texas standards. But we get-there's another Hawk Watch in Corpus Christi and they get hundreds of thousands of birds. But they get lots and lots of broad- wing hawks. And there's about a million broad-wings that probably go around the bay and down through Texas, more than a million. But, the greater portion of those don't come through this site. But we get more of the smaller hawks, like the accipiters and the falcons. And so, whereas Hazel Bazemore, which is the Hawk Watch near Corpus, really gives an idea of timing of broad-wing migration, 'cause that what they get the majority of. We get lots of-we get the larger numbers of Swallow Tail Kites, and, as I said, the accipiters and the falcons.

DT: I understand that some of the raptors have been pretty sensitive to pesticides and suffered some declines in the past. Is that right and are you seeing any recoveries of those?

0:55:16 - 2062 WB: Well the-all the raptor populations are still recovering from DDT. DDT did a lot of damage to raptors and to a lot of the coastal birds, like Brown Pelicans. Because DDT almost did away with Brown Pelicans in Texas. So that, when they pulled DDT out of the system the hawk population started to rebound. And most of them, I think, probably have rebounded about as much as they can. Now they have problems with habitat availability. And there's also still some pesticide problems in South America. In fact, there was just a big kill-off of Swainson's Hawks for some-they-in areas in Argentina, I think, where they raise Sunflowers, they use a pesticide in the Sunflowers to kill grasshoppers. And the Swainson's Hawks were eating the grasshoppers. And large numbers of Swainson's Hawks were dying. I mean, they'd find thousands around roosts. But, the-the pesticide company, which is Ciba Geigy, was very responsible and immediately pulled the pesticide. And they re-they replaced it-they-the farmers the pesticides. They replaced it with something that wouldn't hurt the birds, and, which was very good to see. It's the kind of responsibility that-it's-that-voluntary responsibility, which is nice to see chemical companies doing that. Because, at one time, they weren't-didn't act responsibly.

DT: Can you give some other examples of some of the partnerships that you've been able to create with industry as well as some of the frustrations with industry?

0:56:55 - 2062 WB: Well, we've been-at High Island we've been partnering with Phillips and Amoco. Because Amoco donated land and they donated money. And Phillips Petroleum has been very supportive of quite a few different environmental projects. And they've been good at supporting our projects there with funding. The other kinds of-of partnerships that we've been involved with are more agency partners-partnerships, you know, between nonprofits like Houston Audubon or Texas Audubon with the General Land Office or the Texas Parks and Wildlife, Fish and Wildlife Service. And, we need to be able to partner more with industries to try to solve some of the industry-created problems.

One of the things that really concerns me is the-the damage to the marshes along the Intracoastal Canal. And, they can address it on the wildlife refuges and they have at Aransas. But, right over here on the Bolivar Peninsula we're losing tremendous amounts of marsh. And-but some of it's on private properties and no one's addressing it, but we need the marshes.

DT: Why are those marshes being lost?

0:58:09 - 2062 WB: What happens is the wakes from the-from the boats and the barges gets pushed up into the marsh and it pulls the mud out. So you know how they're always having to dredge the Intracoastal Canal? Well, it's because the-the Intracoastal Canal is-is taking the marsh away. (noise) Do you want to wait for the... It's the Coast Guard.(Misc.)

0:58:40 - 2062

WB: We were out yesterday and the Coast Guard went back and forth and back and forth. There must be somebody lost.