Support Our POC Volunteer Fire Department!

Annual BBQ Fund Raiser Saturday, July 6

The Port O’ Connor Volunteer Fire Department will have their annual BBQ and silent auction and raffle July 6th at the Fire Station. Their goal is to raise enough money to purchase this chassis to put on the small brush truck.

Work began June 4 on the long-awaited Seadrift pier. The Pier will be 300’ long + 12’ wide T-head making the length 312’. The Pier will be 8’ wide with handrails and lighting. The T-head is 50’ long.

It will be constructed approximately 2’ above the seawall and have an accessible ramp which will join a concrete sidewalk around the flagpole, connecting to a concrete sidewalk that will be attached to an accessible ramp at the bluff going up to street level . There will be three or four concrete handicap parking spaces tied to the accessible ramp.

The pier’s location is where 6th Street intersects Bay Avenue.

The expected completion date is not yet known. After the current “wood work” is completed, there will still be concrete work to be done for sidewalks and a ramp, lights to be installed and wired, and a parking area to be constructed.

The funds have been provided through Commissioner’s Court from the CIAP program (Coastal Impact Assistance Program). CIAP is funded with federal royalties from offshore oil and gas leases and assists those states that have supported or been impacted from oil and gas exploration and development along the Outer continental Shelf. In Calhoun County, the County applies for these federal funds and then periodically funds various projects in different areas of the County over the years. Some of these same CIAP funds are also going to be used to repair the Port Alto Beach area.

There is something special about big pink birds. Everybody loves them and admires their beauty. Watching them flying with a long stretched-out neck, long trailing legs and an impossibly pink body against a blue sky is a sight not even the most callous person can ignore. A flock of them feeding together in our local marshes and wetlands can make a bird watcher out of just about anybody. Despite the fact that those big pink birds in our area are sometimes called (Texas) flamingos by folks not familiar with the correct bird names they are, however, Roseate Spoonbills unless they reside permanently on somebody’s front lawn or deck and haven’t moved in years. Flamingos just don’t live in Texas, right!? Or do they?

Have a close look at the photos local fishing guide RJ Shelly recently took from a Lavaca Bay spoil island. Those hooked beaks do certainly not look like a spoonbill. That peculiar hook is indeed typical for a flamingo and the two on this photo, one much brighter than the other, have a history that revealed itself bit by bit with lots of patience and some sleuthing detective work. The story starts in 2005 …

On 14 October 2005 a flamingo was spotted and photographed in Shoalwater Bay, Calhoun County. The photo showed a wide yellow band on the right and a narrow blue band on the left leg but was not clear and close enough to read the band inscriptions. Later it moved to the shallow bays near Goose Island State Park and Bludworth Island. Its pale plumage pointed towards a young bird that had not yet molted into the bright orange pink adult plumage. It took a while to get good enough looks at the yellow band but when the code could finally be read, its letters HDNT lead to the bird bander in Mexico. Dr. Rodrigo Migoya and his organization banded a 3 kilogram (about 7 pounds) heavy youngster at the Rio Lagartos Biosphere Reserve on the Yucatan Peninsula on August 14th, 2005. And so the first piece of the puzzle was solved!

HDNT disappeared from the reefs around Goose Island around the end of April 2006. On 25 July of 2006 another flamingo was spotted in the marshes of Bayside. It did not have a blue band and was much more colorful but after much work with a spotting scope and long telephoto lenses the yellow band on the left leg showed the familiar HDNT. Our youngster was growing up, getting more colorful and had lost the blue band somehow. It moved about a bit and disappeared from public view for a while. But on 17 November 2006 another thrilling discovery was made by a TPWD biologist on Whitmire Lake near Indianola while flying waterfowl surveys.

Not one, but two flamingos were spotted from the plane. The fact that one was bright pink and the other very pale suggested an adult with a juvenile. A couple of weeks later closer looks from the ground showed that both flamingos were banded. The bright one turned out to be our by now familiar HDNT from the Yucatan while the paler one was not a juvenile American Flamingo at all but a Greater Flamingo from the Old World. The 2-toned bill and pale plumage helped in identifying it. The numbers on its band were initially only read partially and upside down to boot so it took a while to figure out where it came from but finally this puzzle piece fell into place, too. The Sedgwick Zoo in Wichita, Kansas was missing this bird.

Now, what are the chances that a lost youngster flamingo from the Yucatan and an escaped Old World flamingo from Wichita, Kansas would eventually find each other in Calhoun County and stick together for company? Lottery tickets and lightning strikes come to mind. But the story continues …..

In late January of 2007 the mismatched pair of flamingos left the Whitmire Lake and moved about 20 miles WSW to the Lower Guadalupe Delta where they were photographed on a private ranch. They made it through cold spells and heat waves, showed up in wetlands north of the Port Lavaca Causeway and near Zimmerman Rd. close to Magnolia Beach. Sightings were reported from Baffin Bay and places along the upper Laguna Madre and from the upper Texas Coast all the way to wetlands in Louisiana.

But now the two are back to where they were first spotted together … Calhoun County. They know our county well and I hope they will find plenty of food and a safe heaven for many more years together.

Please be aware that the spoil islands in Lavaca Bay are currently full of nesting species and off limits to visitors. Any human access or even close approach by boat can and will scare breeding birds off their nests, which endangers the survival of young birds and eggs. Be considerate and enjoy them from a distance or from these great photos.

Beans: 1st – Grand Slam Cookers; 2nd – Its 5 O’ Clock Somewhere; 3rd – Smokin Nuts

Chili: 1st – Wired Up; 2nd – Grand Slam Cookers; 3rd – Ms. Gabby’s Cookers

Gumbo: 1st – W.G.G (Randolph); 2nd – Grand Slam Cookers

Chicken: 1st – Smokin’ Nuts; 2nd – Wired Up; 3rd – Its 5 O’Clock Somewhere

Ribs: 1st – Its 5 O’ Clock Somewhere; 2nd – Grand Slam Cookers; 3rd – Wired Up

Brisket: 1st – Smokin’ Nuts; 2nd – Grand Slam Cookers; 3rd – It’s 5 O’ Colock Somewhere

Wild Card: 1st – It’s 5 O’ Clock Somewhere; 2nd -Grand Slam Cookers

Cook Off Judges

Saturday, May 11, at approximately 3:30 p.m., a weekend home owner in the 400 block of Bay Avenue arrived home to find her rear door had been broken into. As the homeowner left to go to the Seadrift City Hall to report it, she crossed paths with a Seadrift Police unit patrolling three blocks from her home. The homeowner spoke with Police Chief Leonard Bermea who advised the home owner Not! to go inside her home, but to wait outside while he and a second arriving Seadrift Police Officer searched and cleared the home.

As local residents were watching the commotion, Chief Bermea and Officer James Walther entered the home, one officer in front and the second from the rear. After doing a sweep and search of the ground floor, officers began searching the top floor where they spotted the exposed legs of two suspects trying to hide in a closet crawl space against the roof rafters. Both suspects were ordered out and on the floor at gunpoint as officers cuffed and arrested them.

A short time later, residents were shocked to see the Police Officers exiting the home with two suspects in handcuffs. Sheriffs Deputy Gracie Mendoza arrived on scene at that moment to assist. One female suspect was placed in Deputy Mendoza’s patrol unit and one male suspect was placed in Sgt. Walthers patrol unit. Both were transported to Calhoun County for booking and both were later transported to Victoria Juvenile Detention in Victoria Texas by Seadrift Police. Both suspects are under age 18 and were on a missing persons list.

Police officers report $4,000 to $5,000 in damage was done to the home, as the intruders broke some furniture and set a fire. It is believed they consumed the homeowners alcohol and spent one or two days in the home with windows covered, not expecting the owners to arrive.

Chief Bermea advises all homeowners and businesses to never enter a building or structure that has signs of forced entry. Always call police.

Police Officers responded and secured the scene within seconds and quick action prevented the suspects escape. A big ATTABOY to those “Seadrift Boys in Blue”!

Seadrift Police Chief Leonard Bermea

Seadrift Officer James Walther