By Alexis Baldera, Senior Manager, Coastal Program

Each spring and summer, the Texas coast becomes a bustling nursery for some of our most iconic waterbirds. Audubon Texas’s Coastal Program is right there to make sure the chicks get a strong start. Although many birds prefer to nest on islands, we are not an island. It takes coastwide collaboration to make bird conservation efforts successful.  

Working with partners, Audubon Texas protects 175 coastal rookery islands benefiting more than 40,000 breeding pairs of colonial waterbirds from 27 species. This May, our team completed the annual Texas Waterbird Society surveys. The survey, ongoing since the 1970s, is a cornerstone collaborative effort that helps track long-term trends in colonial waterbird populations. Armed with binoculars, scopes, and plenty of sunscreen, our team, alongside dedicated partners and volunteers, covers Texas rookery islands and remote coastlines to count nests, monitor activity, and gather crucial data to inform conservation actions. 

Unlike colonial waterbirds who congregate on islands or isolated marshes, beach-nesting birds require stretches of relatively undisturbed shoreline to raise their young. That is an increasingly tall order in Texas with a host of threats and disturbances from beach driving, unaware beachgoers walking through or near nesting areas, off-leash dogs, and beach management practices that don’t take nesting birds into account. That’s where Audubon Texas’s new Beach-Nesting Bird Stewardship Program works to make these nesting outcomes more likely to succeed. This year, we successfully monitored multiple sites and protected nests at three high-priority areas on the central coast: Magic Ridge Sanctuary, Matagorda Island, and a Point Comfort created marsh. Our avian biologist, Tim Forrester, tracked nesting success for three vulnerable species, Wilson’s Plovers, Least Terns, and Black Skimmers. Strategic fencing, signage, and public education helped keep both people and pets from inadvertently harming fragile nesting zones. Our team is just one group doing this work in Texas; partners include Houston Audubon Society, American Bird Conservancy, Gulf Coast Bird Observatory, and Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program. We are all working together to steward and protect beach-nesting birds. 

These victories are a testament to what science, stewardship, and collaboration can achieve. As we head into the fall, we are already planning next season’s efforts because every nest counts, and every chick matters. 

Thank you to our volunteers, partners, and supporters for helping us along the way! Together we can create a coastal culture that shares the shore with our fellow Texans.