We're not quite there yet. The water isn't cooled off enough for the really good fishing. Give it a few days/weeks and Gulf Shores fishing will really start to take off.
Fish staging, getting ready for fall activity
The weather has been teasing us with hints of fall, but it hasn't given us that significant front needed to really trigger the fishing activity in the area.
Don't get me wrong, the 80s sure beat the heck out of the 90s, but the water temperatures haven't cooled enough to send the fish into the early fall fishing mode.
Capt. Earl Cornelius said the fish are staging nicely on the flats south of the Causeway.
It's getting to be that time of year again. The birds up north are fattening up, fighting over available food stores, getting ready to head south for the winter.
All along the Gulf Coast birders are preparing for the grand migration. Everywhere along the Gulf Coast birding events are scheduled. The event described here centers on the ruby-throated hummingbird. Stay tuned, we'll chronicle these events as they are announced. It's sure to be a great year for birding along the Gulf Coast.
River of hummingbirds
Tiny birds pass through La. on way to winter groundsLAFAYETTE -- A little sugar water is all one needs to catch a glimpse of some of the millions of hummingbirds passing through Louisiana to winter homes south of the border.
“What we have now is a river of hummingbirds flowing through Louisiana,†said Dave Patton, a Lafayette hummingbird enthusiast who has a federal license to band the birds with tiny aluminum bracelets to help track migration patterns.
September is the most active month in south Louisiana for the ruby-throated hummingbird, the main species seen in the state.
The birds flew north across the Gulf of Mexico in the spring to breed in the eastern half of the United States, from Louisiana to as far as southern Canada.
The tiny hummingbirds — or “hummers†as birders call them — are flittering around flowers and feeders to fatten up for the return trip to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
“They’ll double their body weight. You can see them do it,†said Bill Fontenot, an avid birder and curator at the Acadiana Park Nature Station.
Fontenot said the birds will go from about 3.2 grams to 5 grams, about the weight of a nickel.
Unlike the spring migration across the Gulf, many ruby-throats are thought to migrate in the fall along the coast, from Louisiana through Texas and then south instead of taking the perilous day-long trip across open water, Fontenot said.
“The entire eastern population, we believe, flies south to the Gulf Coast and hangs a right. … Most of us believe they all funnel through Louisiana and east Texas,†Fontenot said.
The fall migration pattern is a boon for Louisiana birders, because the state not only hosts the ruby-throats that nested here, but also their offspring hatched over the summer and birds from the north passing through on their way south.
“That’s why it’s such a phenomenon in southwest Louisiana,†Fontenot said. “It’s not at all unusual to find 50 birds in one yard.â€
Patton said many of the birds might be in a particular yard only for a day before continuing along the migration journey.
Best Western On The Beach
337 East Beach Boulevard
Gulf Shores, AL 36547
(251) 948-2711
Comfort Inn
3049 West 1st Street
(251) 968-8604
Toll Free: (800) 228-5150
Courtyard Marriott Gulf Shores at Craft Farms
3750 Gulf Shores Parkway
Gulf Shores, AL 36542
(251) 968-1113
Toll Free: (800) 360-9375
Gulf Pines Motel
245 East 22nd Avenue
Gulf Shores, AL 36542
(251) 968-7911
Gulf Shores Plantation
HIGHWAY 180 WEST
GULF SHORES, AL 36547
(800) 554-0344
Gulf Shores Surf and Racquet Club
Gulf State Park consists of 6,150 acres on the Alabama Gulf Coast with 2 miles of sugar white sand beaches. Gulf State Park has modern and primitive camping, cottages, marina, trails and fishing. What more could you ask for? How about tennis, group pavilions, nature programs and picnic areas? It's all there at Gulf State Park.
Gulf State Park is located in the city of Gulf Shores, directly on the Alabama gulf coast. Sugary white sun-kissed beaches, a surging surf, seagulls and seashells await you at Gulf State Park.
Mark your calendar. This year's Alabama Coastal BirdFest promises to be the biggest and best ever.
The 2006 Alabama Coastal BirdFest takes place the weekend of October 19-22. This year’s BirdFest will include nearly 20 great tours to prime birding spots on the 240-mile long Alabama Coastal Birding Trail. There will be two exciting evening events plus a free day-long Bird & Conservation Expo.
This year we are repeating some of our most popular tours from past festivals, and adding something new. We have three new tours to Dauphin Island that include an excursion on Mobile Bay on the Dauphin Island Sea Lab research vessel, the A.E. Verrill, a 65-foot ocean-going craft. Not only will we see the birds of Mobile Bay, but marine biologists from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab will be with us to examine specimens caught in a trawl. - John Borom, president of Mobile Bay Audubon Society
At BirdFest’s opening night reception on Thursday, Oct. 19th, a panel of three distinguished ornithologists will discuss Hurricanes & Habitat: How Wildlife Survives. The panel includes
Registration for the 2006 Alabama Coastal BirdFest is now open.
State and local Alabama officials are doing more to promote Gulf Coast Alabama ecotourism activities. The latest is a free seminar to be held this Wednesday. An Ecotourism Summit is planned for local businesses to help them to better understand and promote the Gulf Shores and Alabama Gulf Coast areas.
Officials from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program and the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Reserve will attend the event and discuss their respective ecotourism programs. Attendees will get insight and updates on programs such as Coastal Cleanup, the state's Clean Marina program and Share the Beach - a program which monitors sea turtle nesting.