Posted: Friday, May 3, 2013 12:03 pm | Updated: 12:11 pm, Fri May 3, 2013.
By Charles Steward
During the past week one of the rookery islands in San Antonio Bay has been ravaged. Most of the nests, chicks, and birds are gone.
“I’ve been watching this island since 1969,” said Captain Kevin Sims of Aransas Bay Birding Charters. “I’ve never seen the island where the birds have left like they have.”
For Sims this island was also special because a rare white Great Blue Heron was at a nest with a chick, also white. Both of these rare birds are lost too.
He recalled, “I went by the island, Monday April 22, in the morning and everything was okay. There were lots of chicks, nests, and eggs. There were a lot of reddish egrets setting on eggs.”
Sims said, “I went by Thursday (April 25) and the island was stripped of nests, eggs and chicks. It is disappointing about the white chick. I wanted to see this bird grow up and see how it behaved.”
Sims returned to the island Friday and it appeared someone had returned and stripped it even more. He added, “I went by there on Sunday and there were just a handful of spoonbills left.”
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