Introduction
"It's a little breezy, and stormy...again"
Welcome to my latest summary of our photography adventure to the Texas Gulf Coast! I like to find new places to visit for our adventures but there are some places that are so awesome you just have to go back. The Texas Gulf Coast is one of them! This is our second trip to the Galveston and High Island portion of the coast, the last one being back in April of 2022. You can see the summary of that adventure here. If you like reading about our adventures you can find the whole collection of them here. This one is number 15. Yikes, how'd that happen? There should probably be a bunch more but I've been busy. Put 'em on the list.
I've been accused of "over planning" on occasion and as I looked at my Google Map pins of potential targets for our Texas Gulf Coast trip I thought maybe we had a few more than we could possibly hit. At least we had a lot of places to pick from! Of course we had a priority list and we targeted those places first.
If you want to optimize your visit to these areas the timing is really important. Ideally you want to time your visit to coincide with bird migrations to maximize the number of birds you have a chance to photograph. The more birds the more chance one of them will do something cool that you can capture. Duh. The last time we visited this part of the country we went a little earlier in April and we missed the peak migration by about a week. So this time we scheduled our trip for a week later in the year hoping to hit it just right. Unfortunately since we're scheduling these things months in advance it's really hard to predict the weather patterns which can also impact timing of the migrations. This planning ahead stuff is for the birds...it's ok, you can laugh.
Fortunately there were a lot of birds this time but the weather was pretty challenging. Winds every day were 20-25 miles an hour with gusts up to 40 mph at times. And we had a couple days with rain but we got mostly lucky and were able to get out to shoot. This has been the year for breezy and stormy weather--I think just about every trip we've taken this year has been really challenging weather-wise but I'm sure it makes us stronger...
Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge & Smith Oaks Sanctuary
"We got a new drip"
Our first stop for this trip was the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge in, you guessed it, Anahuac, Texas. I cleared up the pronunciation of this place in our earlier adventure summary but for those who don't mind a spoiler it's "Anna Whack". It's about an hour or so from the Houston Hobby airport and pretty much on the way to Smith Oaks Sanctuary, which was at the top of our list because it's bird Mecca. Anahuac has a lot of birds too, along with other wildlife you can view from a one-way 2.6 mile "Wildlife Drive" road that covers only a part of the 34,000 acres of the refuge. If the weather isn't that great (and it wasn't), this is a pretty good way to keep from getting soaked as you can just pull your vehicle over when you see a good spot.
We've been to the Anahuac refuge a couple other times but this time the Visitor Center was actually open so we stopped in to check it out. The Rangers at the visitor centers are always interested in having you sign in and tell them where you're from so that's a good conversation starter. I mentioned that we were last there in 2022 and asked if there was anything new to see. In a very long, drawn out Texan accent the Ranger said "We have a new drip". But "drip" was pronounced something like "Dreeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiip" but I might have missed a couple E's or I's. An image of John Cleese playing Sheriff Langston in the 1985 Western movie Silverado immediately popped into my head--you know, the one where he tells Kevin Kline's character Payden in his thick English accent, "I'm not from these parts". Well, myself not being from these parts I had no clue what a drip was but I played along. I checked it out on the internet after I got home and couldn't find a good website that explains what a drip is but I think it's a place where water drops into a pool somehow. I'm really glad they got a new one.
Our second stop was Smith Oaks Sanctuary, which is about 20 miles down the road from Anahuac in High Island, Texas. High Island is famous for hosting thousands of birds that pass through during migrations and Smith Oaks is definitely one of our favorite spots. And I like the name. Here are some of my favorite shots from the day.
Laffite's Cove Nature Preserve
"No Dogs No Tripods"
Laffite's Cove Nature Preserve is a small area tucked away inside a really nice neighborhood between West Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. There's a small lake and a wooded area with trails for people who enjoy nature. We had some good luck here last time we visited so we wanted to check it out again. There are a couple things to remember about Laffite's Cove--first of all it's spelled with two f's and one t. If you go online to do a search you'll see it also spelled with one f and two t's. It's almost 50/50 that you'll see it one way or the other.
The preserve is named after Jean Lafitte, who was a French pirate operating in and around the Gulf of Mexico in the early 1800's and who later helped General Andrew Jackson defend New Orleans during the War of 1812 in return for a legal pardon. He originally spelled his last name "Laffite" with two f's, but many of the English language documents spelled his name "Lafitte" with two t's. Apparently Laffite's Cove is going with the original spelling and so am I for this adventure. But just to make sure I cover all the bases, during my last adventure summary I spelled it the other way.
The second thing about Laffite's Cove is that is NOT to be confused with Lafitte's Grove, which is about a half mile away and is a terrible location for photography. Story for another day...Oh, and the third thing about Laffite's Cove is that apparently they don't like dogs. Or tripods. Maybe it's not their fault--could be caused by Cynophobia or Tripophobia.
Bolivar Flats
"Looks like the tide's coming in"
One of my favorite places to photograph birds is the Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary, and I was really excited that we had a chance to go back there during our trip. From our hotel we kinda got into a routine of getting up around 4:30am or so, packing up our gear, driving to the ferry landing and waiting to get on the 6:00am ferry that takes us across Galveston Bay from Galveston to Port Bolivar and the High Island bird hotspots. We always talk about possibly getting some lodging up in High Island but find it more fun to stay somewhere near civilization in Galveston Beach. So we pay the price by doing the drive and the ferry every day we decide to head north. Somebody's got to do it.
So after the drive, the ferry crossing and a little more driving we work our way to Bolivar Beach, arriving in the dark, and we drive straight toward the Gulf of Mexico until we hit the water and then turn right. We drive down the sandy beach (it's a rental car so no worries!) for a half mile or so passing tent campers, RVs, pickup trucks and fishermen until the beach is blocked off and we can't go any further. Then we head out on foot with our cameras into the mudflats.
The absolute best time to be in Bolivar Flats is during low tide, but the week we were in town the tides were rising during the early morning hours. As we passed the cars and trucks on our way down the beach we could tell the water was coming up toward everyone. We figured we'd get a couple hours in before the tide got too high and then we'd have to skedaddle (hey, this is Texas, and even though I'm not from around these parts it's ok to use words like that). Our plan worked out perfectly for us but as we were driving back up the beach to head out there were a few scrambling families who had set up camp a little too close to the rising tide and their cars and campsites were getting flooded. Hope nobody decided to sleep in that day.
Below are a few of my favorite shots from Bolivar Flats.
Galveston Island State Park
"Ask me anything, they made me take a big test"
We always find great food locations when we go on our adventures and Galveston Beach is no exception. But lately it seems like we're getting more and more servers who are on their first day. Guess what happened this time? Yup. But no problem for me, they're always filled with energy and looking to do a really good job. During a late lunch on the first full day of our adventure we were fortunate to get Maddie as our server. I asked her how long she had been working at the restaurant and she said she just started. She also eagerly followed up with "Ask me anything, they made me take a big test". We all laughed. I ordered the day's lunch special. She kinda froze up so I bailed her out by showing her the placard on the table that said what the special was. We all laughed again. And she was great.
Galveston Island State Park is another fantastic location for wildlife. We spent several hours there one morning and were able to get some nice shots. Below are a few of my favorites.
Another Great Adventure!
As always we had a great time enjoying nature and trying to create some good images. Thanks for following along on our adventure! I hope you enjoyed it. If you missed any of my other photography adventure summaries you can find them here. If you want to see more of my images you can check out my photography Portfolio Page or follow me on Instagram or Facebook. See you next time!