Sundown Island Bird Sanctuary

An Audubon Bird Sanctuary
Port O'Connor, Texas

2005 Annual Sundown Island Bird Count

View Photos of birds taken
during the Annual Bird Count.

Species	Nests
Brown Pelican	1,714
Great Blue Heron	69
Great Egret	149
Snowy Egret	23
Little Blue Heron	-
Tricolored Heron	112
Reddish Egret	18
Cattle Egret	8
Black-crowned Night Heron	57
White Ibis	114
Glossy Ibis	-
White-faced Ibis	-
Roseate Spoonbill	24
Laughing Gull	3,000
Gull-billed Tern	14
Caspian Tern	25
Royal Tern	2,115
Sandwich Tern	105
Black Skimmer	200
Oystercatcher	1
Total	7,748

By Winnie Burkett

On May 20, 2005, Pat Clements, Robyn Cobb, Claire Lee, Chester Smith, Marcy
Spears and I counted the nests and adults on Sundown Island.

There were a total of 7,748 nests overall. This is a low number of nests for Sundown and some interesting things are going on there. First it is really dry in that area, which means vegetation on the island is in bad shape. Silver leaf Sunflower is the most prolific plant on the island and an important nesting substrate for the small herons and ibis. By late May the sunflowers are usually 5–6 feet tall. This year they are 1–2 feet and large areas are just bare and brown. This makes a big impact on species like Tricolor Herons for example, last year we had 570 nests and this year we had 112.

Brown Pelican nests are way up this year, last year there were 987. This is most likely due to the failure of the colony on Pelican Island near Corpus Christi. They have predator problems there.

We counted 400 Laughing Gull nests but observed around 5000 adults so there should be more nests soon.

We counted 400 Black Skimmers just sitting around but we could not see nests without too much disturbance. Since most feed at night we came up with 200 pairs.

Sundown, an Audubon Texas Sanctuary, is a dredge material island and changes rapidly. A big chunk of the vegetated part of the island has eroded and new material has no vegetation. We are happy to have new material on the island but wish that the Army Corp of Engineers would stabilize the shore of the island so vegetation wouldn't be lost. It would also save tax dollars to stabilize the island as the eroded material goes right back into the channel.

Chester Smith, the warden for the island, keeps negotiating with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to get more cement mats for the island shore. At 84 Chester keeps busier with his part-time warden job than some people with full time jobs. Many of our coastal colonies need lots of management especially with sea level rise and subsidence.

Winnie Burkett is a biologist who lives in Friendswood and is the Upper Texas Coast Colonial Waterbird Steward for Audubon Texas. If you would like to know more about the Coastal Stewardship Program, be sure to visit the Audubon Texas Web site.