Yesterday I met Winnie Burkett at HWY 146 and I-10 in Baytown. We rode out to the town of Winnie and then down to High Island to asses the damage caused by Hurricane Ike. At Farm Road 1985, state troopers were checking for proof of property ownership, Winnie has a house in High Island, so we proceeded. The damage on HWY 124 was substantial, there were very few power lines and poles still standing. There was debris caught up in the tops of the poles 25-30' in the air from the high water. All of the spartina, and other marsh grasses were dead due to the saturation by salt water, for miles and miles north of the inter-coastal had been submerged under the surge of water. We saw dead cows, bloated like I have never seen, they were un-recognizable. The air smelled like plant decay, petroleum, and dead fish.

Closer to High Island, we passed by the oil fields where all of the wells were shut down, and petroleum odor filled the air. The vast amount of water still in the marsh and ditches was inundated with oil and gas. The oil fields are leaching petroleum and it will seep into all channels of the area's hydrology and biology. Because High Island is 40' above sea level, the highest points were not flooded, but the area did experience heavy wind damage. We went by Boy Scout woods and walked the boardwalk trails. As soon as we got in the sanctuary, a bull a cow and a calf walked down 5th street. Later we found that folks were corralling them in the high school football field. There were more trees and limbs down, and leaf litter everywhere. It was as if Ike took care of some of the trees that Humberto and Rita missed. The water had risen around the ponds at Boy Scout Woods and lifted sections of the boardwalk, stacking them like pancakes. We birded as we assessed the damage. We saw many migrants including Canada Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, Redstarts, and Gnatcatchers.

We rode by The Texas Ornithological Society's Hook Woods. There was bad tree damage there as well. There were houses broken apart like matchsticks in the sanctuary that must have been pushed by the rising water and then ended up in Hook Woods. We stopped by Houston Sliger's house. Normally from their front yard, you can stand in the lawn and look south overlooking the Gulf. During the storm, the water rose to about 200 feet from their front door. Imagine looking outside and seeing the ocean coming at you slowly, but not that slowly, and all you can do is hope that it stops soon. We then headed to Smith Oaks and the Old Mexico neighborhood.

Although Smith Oaks didn't experience high water, the neighborhood did. More trees fell at the picnic area of Smith Oaks, and the island at the Rookery was covered with broken trees and limbs. Many trees were down on the levee trail, and Yellow Warblers were everywhere. I found a large turtle on the first platform that I put on the trail. It hurried down the bank and into the water like it had been looking for the pond for days. Gators were everywhere, but except for the occasional noisy call of the Moorhen, there were few rookery birds. The woods of Smith Oaks were littered with branches and leaves, but not too many trees were down. The salt water from the bay, inter-coastal, and the gulf threaten the plant biology and therefore the food web of the coastal areas. The badly beaten oil fields will forever threaten the fragileness of the ecosystem as well. Thousands of homes were destroyed, virtually wiped clean and displaced piece-by-piece all around the Gulf of Mexico. Hummingbirds are having a hard time finding flowers because they were all stripped clean. Even the trees lost their leaves. The closer to the heavy hit parts of the storm, the more and more it looks like wintertime. Just about every tree looked dead or dormant. But as Winnie and I found, the migrants are still using High Island for rest and fuel before their migration across the Gulf, it is as important as ever to make sure they have a healthy habitat for there journey.

A link to the pictures can be found at the top of the page.