To: longnshort who wrote (13105 ) 10/5/2009 5:11:28 PM From: Brumar89 Respond to And if we install windmills offshore as Simmons wants for the Gulf of Maine and Galveston Bay, we'll eventually be hearing about massive death toll in migratory wildfowl. There isn't anything you can do that won't have an impact on wildlife. Study of Bird and Bat Migration Underway in Gulf of Maine mpbn.net The upper Texas Coast, including the Galveston Bay area, lies along three of the four major North American flyways for migratory birds. Its forests, prairies, wetlands and coastal oak mottes provide extremely important stopover habitat to neotropical migratory birds that winter in Mexico and Central and South America, and for species that spend winters along the Gulf Coast.Raptors are plentiful in the Galveston Bay area. The spectacular annual hawk migration in late summer and fall draws thousands of visitors each year from all over the world. Birders flock to Smith Point to witness huge "kettles" of Broad-winged Hawks rise with thermals from the bay, as well as Sharp-Shinned Hawks, Swainson's Hawks, Peregrine Falcons, Swallow-tailed Kites, and twenty other species of raptors. These birds converge at Smith Point en route to wintering grounds in Texas, Mexico, and Central and South America. Although raptors are the main attraction, many other unique migratory species such as the endangered wood stork can be seen from the Smith Point observation tower and in the oak mottes along trails through the area.From about November through March, majestic Sandhill cranes can be found in large numbers in roosts and feeding areas in the lower Galveston Bay watershed. gbep.state.tx.us During the spring migration, brightly colored neotropical birds from Central American fly 700 miles across the Gulf of Mexico to drop exhausted—especially if they flown into a spring norther—into the oak mottes at High Island. In the fall over Smith Point, birders see hundreds of hawks migrating to South America. At Bolivar flats huge concentrations of shore birds gather at another Audubon sanctuary. gbcpa.net When easterners dine on blue crabs on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, chances are those crabs could come from Galveston, not Chesapeake Bay, whose fisheries have been devastated by comparable urban development.
