Photo Gallery

Devon Fall Workday Mark your calendars! The Sundown Island Fall workday is scheduled for Saturday, October 21, 2006.

June 10, 2006 —On a calm Friday morning at the end of May, Chester Smith, Sundown Island Warden and volunteers headed across Matagorda Bay to Sundown Island for the annual bird count.

Volunteers for the annual census included: Winnie Burkett (Upper Texas Coast Colonial Waterbird Steward for Audubon Texas), David Newstead (Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program), Jaimie Ingold (USGS, Corpus Christi), Julia Garrett, Peggy Wilkinson, Diane Nunley, and Jeremy Cecil.

Julia and Peggy counted birds on the west side of the tractor shed. David and Jaimie counted on the East end of the island, including Black Skimmers and Terns and whatever was nesting on the edge. Winnie and Diane counted birds in the center of the island and Terns on the North end. Most of the Terns were Royals, some Sandwich and a few Caspian Terns were present. Abe Moore and Don Cash from (Texas Parks and Wildlife) also accompanied the group to continue filming the documentary on Sundown Island. The Laughing Gulls laid eggs all over the island. The counters had to be careful where they stepped to avoid chicks or eggs. Here are the numbers:

Photo Credit: Diane Nunley

Breeding Pairs Number Brown Pelican 1,103 Great Blue Heron 69 Great Egret 44 Snowy Egret 19 Reddish Egret 34 Tricolored Heron 234 Little Blue Heron 21 Cattle Egret 25 Black-crowned Night-Heron 57 White Ibis 121 Roseate Spoonbill 32 Laughing Gull 3,000 Caspian Tern 13 Royal Tern 5,772 Sandwich Tern 1,632 Black Skimmer 475 Crested Caracara 2 Total 12,653

If you are interested in more information about colonial waterbirds on the Texas coast, also visit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: Texas Coastal Program site. This site includes census data on counts going back twenty or more years.

Postscript: The weekend following the birdcount, Port O'Connor had a series of severe thunderstorms, dumping 19 inches of rain on the area. Peggy and Tim Wilkinson, the first volunteers to survey the island after the storm, said that they observed about 100 dead Pelican chicks and that the Black Skimmer and Tern populations seem to be cut in half as a result of the storm.