Any Birders in the Houston, Texas Area? I'm new and Need Help and Advice. (1 Viewer)

[MUHerd]

Hey all.

I am new at this and don't know much about birding. I am wanting to learn more and give this hobby an honest try. I'd like to find a local group here in the Spring area. If I can't find a group, I'd settle for a few people. I've also been told that I need to get a mentor. I wouldn't mind that either.

I'd like to find out places to go to see lots of birds. Which national forests, state forests, local wildlife areas and parks are good to go to for Birding. I especially would like to go to the Big Thickett and Sam Houston National Forest to see what's there. They are so huge and it makes it difficult to find productive locations to find birds. Any info you can help me with on these areas would be greatly appreciated.

Any other info and help you can give me about these other areas would be really helpful and get me started on the right track.

Thank you for your time and any help you can give me.

Feel free to private message me or email me at: nalapombu 'AT' yahoo.com

Have a great week!

Larry

 

[KC Foggin]

Not from Texas but you might try your local Audubon Society to help you out. Here's a link to them:

http://houstonaudubon.org/

 

[MUHerd]

I wrote to them a couple weeks ago and they weren't much help at all. They had no contact names or local groups for me to get with. All they were able to do for me was give me the name of a local nature center that has some kind of bird walk every now and again.
Very disappointing. I thought they'd be able to give me a local person or group that I could contact and start learning from them and hopefully get a mentor or guide that I could go with to really learn the ins and outs and get advice.

But nope!!

Looks like except for this forum, I'm on my own here.

Thanks anyway for the suggestion.

Maybe I'll get lucky and find someone that can point me in the right direction. Been thinking about an ad on Craigslist.

Larry

 

[MUHerd]

One more thing. This is starting out the same way it did for me when I first moved here and tried to find someone to help me learn about the local methods and such of feral hog hunting. These feral hogs are destroying habitat every day and they need to be removed. I don't know how you all feel about hunting, but these animals are very destructive to the habitat and environment.

I had read for years about how ranchers and land owners begged people to come down here and kill the hogs from their land. Or at least try and slow them down. I was excited as I could be.

I tried every which way I could think of and in the 4 years I have been here, I think I've had 1 person give me a little bit of help.
I put ads on Craigslist, in the paper, posted stuff and talked to the people at the local feed store, you name it. I tried everything. No one responded. They just weren't interested in helping a new person find places to hunt or give advice on methods and tactics to hunt these pigs. I never have been able to understand it. Above all it makes me very sad to learn that the way people are here are not at all like what I had been told, read about or seen on shows. In every other way except hunting and fishing, the people of Texas have been wonderful. They have really been great people to be around. Hunting and fishing.....totally different story.

I'm praying and hoping that this situation is not going to be like that.

We'll see. Only time will tell, but it's not starting out too well. Doesn't exactly give one a lot of encouragement for the future.

Just so you know, I am NOT talking about those here on this forum. You all have been fantastic. All the questions I have asked have been answered with very good advice and help. I've even messaged members out of the blue to ask them questions and every single person has been incredibly helpful and giving. This is a GREAT PLACE with a lot of fantastic people that give of themselves to try and increase those that want to go out and enjoy the incredible Avians that GOD has given us. I'm grateful to have found this forum!!

Have a great week everyone! Thank you for your time.

Larry

 

[Mysticete]

Have you checked out Facebook? I know Texbirds on Facebook is active, and I am a member of the American Birding Association which also has a good facebook presence. The ABA also runs a bird id page for newbies that would be of interest. Probably your best shot at connecting with local birders.

For places to go, I would recommend tracking down a copy of this:

https://www.amazon.com/Birders-Guide-Texas-Coast-Birdfinding/dp/1878788035.
Should also include general advice on what birds will be around and where to concentrate your efforts. Another good resource is ebird...exploring around there can help you identify local hotspots.

When I started out birding, I went on a few local birding field trips, but I didn't really have any sort of formal mentorship or anything. Mentorships just seem to naturally evolve amongst birders, and asking directly for a mentor probably won't go anywhere. Unfortunately it looks like the Houston AS requires membership to participate in their trips, but that still might be worthwhile to invest in (field trips and programs are a good way of connecting with other birders).

Personally I would just find a good spot near you suggested by ebird and head out early with bins and a field guide. The upper Texas coast has some phenomal birding, and its probably far easier a place diveristy wise to start out birding than many places I have lived.

Something to keep in mind is, AFAIK, birding activity slows down in the summer in most of the south (which probably has more to do with bugs and heat than an absence of good birds). For best results you are going to want to be out at near dawn if you are after songbirds. So just be aware that if you are starting off now, you might be in a bit of a slow period/tougher period to bird in, so don't get too dispirited. Thankfully Spring Migration should still be on right now, and so you should have good numbers of songbirds and shorebirds passing through your area.

 

[Sangahyando]

I second the above.

Personally I would just find a good spot near you suggested by ebird and head out early with bins and a field guide.

Indeed, in my experience it's better to do so than to wait for other people to respond. Many of us are self-taught to some degree.


About the hogs issue, maybe people felt they were being unfairly stereotyped somehow, even though that was obviously not your intention (as you know, there is this huge stereotype of all Texans being gun-toting, bible-thumping rednecks, particularly here in Europe). Hard to judge from a distance.
Maybe they'll just need a few more months or years to get to know you better before they respond. Allowing a complete stranger to hunt on your land is always a risk after all. I've heard people in my area are similarly wary, and the best way of obtaining such permissions from landowners is probably to know them directly, as well as someone in the hunting scene.
About tactics, I suppose you could try to look up boar hunting methods practised in continental Europe.

 

[Paul Chapman]

If it is a good local site as well, you will probably find local birders. Some will be friendly. (A minority will be surly and keep themselves to themselves.) Find the friendly local ones and be willing to learn and they will absolutely delight in showing you birds. Honest!

Good birding.

 

[MUHerd]

I'm not opposed to going at it by myself. The reason I am asking about a mentor is that when I first started asking about trying Birding, the first comments I got told me the best way to get started was to find a mentor. I don't know of any other ways to locate a mentor other than participate in outings with local birders. It seems as though that's turning out to be a tall order to fill. I hope it doesn't stay this way and I have no reason to believe it will. I'll just have to try my best to get involved in local stuff when I see an opportunity presents itself. Maybe good things will happen!!

Yeah, I figure Texans are looked at as gun totin' fellows and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, especially those that are from Europe or Asia where gun ownership is almost wiped out. It's not how it really is, but that's another discussion. It just appears that way because we feel like our rights and freedoms are under constant assault. We feel like we gave to constantly fight because there are large, well funded groups out there that are working hard each day to take away the things many of us hold dear. So we have no choice but to fight for our freedoms or they will be taken away by a party that believes they know best how people should live their lives.

As for the hunting problem, yes, I agree, part of it is that I am a stranger. These people don't know me and since I don't know anyone here other than family, there isn't much of a chance for me to meet anyone.

Another huge factor in the hog hunting problems I've experienced is that a lot of these farmers and land owners have found out that these living, breathing BULLDOZERS can bring them a sizesble chunk of money each year. They can either set up a lease on their land where they charge a certain number of hunters a pretty penny in exchange for the farmer or land owner closing their land down to everyone that's not in their lease and those that do pay to get on the lease get exclusive hunting rights to the piece of land.
Then there's the others that will set up these solar powered feeders that will start up and sling corn around for so many minutes each day and the hogs get used to the DINNER BELL sound and come running. The land owners will then put in blinds all around the feeders on their property and charge people that want to hunt hogs. They'll put ads on Craigslist, eBay, anywhere they can to try and get hunters to come and hunt their hogs. These "day hunts" are usually $150-175 per day or $300-400 for a hunt going from Friday to Sunday with lodging and meals included.

The thing is for me, I don't consider that hunting. It's more like target shooting. I'm just not into anything like that. I'm not down on others that are, it's just not for me.

I could go on and on about the hog hunting here in Texas and my difficulties doing it over the years, but that's another thread I think.

If anyone would like to talk about Texas hog hunting, PM me or email me at: [email protected] and I'll be glad to talk all you want about it.

Have a great week.

Larry