By Brandt Mannchen 

Saturday, October 11, 2025, the Houston Sierra Club met at Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Candy Abshier Wildlife Management Area (WMA) on Smith Point in Chambers County on a coastal outing.  At this WMA we visited the observation platform to look for raptors and other birds along with scores of others who were celebrating “Hawk Watch” which has been implemented by the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory for 29 years.

Thanks to all who attended including Rhona, Michael, Elaine, Linda, Denise, Ann, Sandy, Ed, Catherine, Ginger, Brenda, Terry, Shelley, Steve, Guadalupe, Steven, and Brandt. 

It’s the people, as well as the places, that make a great outing.  Both Sierra Club members and prospective members showed great delight, fun, and interest in our tour of Smith Point and Jocelyn Nungaray (Anahuac) National Wildlife Refuge. 

At “Hawk Watch” we saw Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Black and Turkey Vultures, Cooper’s Hawks, Northern Harriers, Brown Pelicans, Laughing Gulls, and a myriad of brightly colored dragonflies.  The wildflowers were out in force with blooming False Foxglove, Swamp Sunflower, White Guara, Dayflower, Canadian Goldenrod, Woolley Croton, Firewheel, and a host of others.

In addition, the SPCA, which has a wildlife rehabilitation center, provided an Eastern Screech Owl (reddish color phase) and Harriss’ Hawk for people to see up close as an educational endeavor.  These birds have been injured and can’t be released back into the wild.  They are now ambassadors for wildlife so folks can understand their importance and beauty, and will want to protect them and the places they live.

We also visited Trinity Bay, via Hawkins Camp Road, and looked for shorebirds.  We found many Laughing and other gulls along with Royal Terns, Brown Pelicans, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, and an American Oystercatcher.  It was great to see an Osprey on a power-pole with a fish that it had just caught in East Bay. 

We then drove to Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge and on the way saw Scissortailed Flycatchers and a Crested Caracara.

We ate our lunch at the NWR and after exploring the freshwater pond (where we saw several small American Alligators and Red-eared Sliders) and the butterfly garden we took the auto tour to see the tallgrass prairie, fresh, brackish, and saltwater wetlands, and enjoyed the natural scenery.

Some of the birds we saw included Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Moorhens, Black-necked Stilts, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Shoverlers, Little Blue Herons, Tri-colored Herons, Neotropic and Double-crested Cormorants, American Kestrels, and more American Alligators.

It was a great sunny day with a light wind that cooled us off until late afternoon turned hot.  It was refreshing to stand on the edge of East Bay and see the rock breakwaters and the Smooth Cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), gulls flying and sitting nearby, a view of Bolivar Peninsula, and if you squinted just right, Galveston, Texas on the clear horizon.

I hope you come with us next time to enjoy our public lands, calm down, refuel your imagination, and enjoy our wild, outdoors.