Tag Archives: Bolivar Peninsula

Protecting Texas’ Globally Important Bolivar Peninsula—We Can Do This Now!

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Instead of your regularly-scheduled blog, we today invite FSB readers to join in on an urgent appeal to help protect one of North America’s coolest and most vital bird habitats—the globally important Bolivar Peninsula. Learn more and donate by clicking here—or on the Piping Plover below.

If you’ve followed FatherSonBirding—or read my books Birding for Boomers or Warblers & Woodpeckers: A Father-Son Big Year of Birding—you know that High Island and the Bolivar Peninsula outside of Houston have played pivotal roles in Braden’s and my birding experiences. In these locations, the Houston Audubon Society (HAS) has worked tirelessly to obtain, restore, and protect vital habitat for both migrating and resident birds. On our first visit to High Island and the Bolivar Peninsula in 2016, Braden and I saw an astounding forty-five Life Birds in one day! These included everything from Scarlet Tanagers and Least Terns to Piping, Black-bellied, and Semipalmated Plovers.

Braden and I saw our first-ever Piping Plovers on the Bolivar Peninsula, and I was lucky to see this endangered species again on a subsequent visit.

Even though I live in Montana, I became an annual supporter of HAS shortly after that visit. Even better, I have been fortunate to visit the area three more times. Every trip has been a highlight of my birding career. Each time, I have seen gobs of amazing songbirds, shorebirds, and waders, and learned a ton about birds. Just check out some of my past posts about visiting the region:

Turkey Day Texas Adventures Part 1: Pursuing Plovers

Tangled!

Going Cuckoo for Fall Warblers in Texas

Anahuac Lifer Attack

Unfortunately, during my visits, I also have noticed an inescapable fact: the Bolivar Peninsula is being developed at an astounding rate and the reason is clear: beachfront property. During our first visit there, Braden and I noticed quite a few houses along the 25-mile or so stretch of the peninsula. On each subsequent visit, I was blown away by how many new houses had sprung up since my previous visit! On my most recent trip, this past April, I realized with dismay that the entire peninsula would soon be wall-to-wall housing developments.

One of dozens of major housing developments that have sprung up on the Bolivar Peninsula since Braden and I first visited in 2016.

I can’t even begin to explain how poorly-conceived this kind of rampant development is. Never mind that it has gobbled up some of the best remaining Gulf Coast wildlife habitat, it is virtually guaranteed that hurricanes will totally destroy these developments as they have in the past—and with increasing frequency thanks to climate change (see this Hurricane Ike story and this astonishing storm list). In fact, the ability of the peninsula in its natural state to block tidal surges, prevent erosion, and soak up storm water economically outweighs by far the short-term profits from this get-rich-quick development.

Rampant development in coastal areas not only destroys critical habitat, it greatly diminishes the ability of the coast to withstand hurricanes and other major storms. Though I’d love to enjoy a beachfront house like this myself, economically it is a lose-lose situation, both for homeowners and taxpayers, who often get stuck with paying the bills for disaster cleanup and rebuilding.

Still, the lure of fast profits is just too much here as it is in many other places. And that’s why I’m writing this post. Right now is one of our last best chances to protect what remains of this globally vital birding habitat. How? Currently, HAS owns and manages more than 3,000 acres of Bolivar Peninsula habitat—natural islands in an expanding sea of development. And yet, right at the entrance to their Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary, a new development recently cropped up. Ironically dubbed the Sanderling Development, it threatened to wipe out critical habitat and destroy a buffer to the core of the Bolivar refuge. The good news? Through heroic efforts, HAS managed to raise $3 million to buy 25 acres of the land this past July. Now, however, they need another $3 million to complete purchase of the remaining 27 acres of the property. This land is so vital that for the first time in decades, HAS has issued a public appeal for funds—And that’s where we come in!

Just one of many Bolivar housing developments, the proposed Sanderling Development directly threatened the ecological integrity of the Bolivar Flats refuge right across the road. However, HAS still needs to raise $3 million to complete the property’s acquisition. Click on this photo to donate!

No matter where we live, securing this last bit of property should be a major priority for birders. Not only does it help provide essential stop-over areas for millions of migrating birds that spread out across the continent, it helps protect critical breeding and wintering habitat. Endangered Piping Plovers, Black Rails, and Red Knots are just three endangered species among hundreds of other species that use this important area.

A fall Long-billed Curlew at Bolivar Flats—perhaps just returned from breeding in Montana?

So how about it? Do you have $25 to chip in? $100? $1000? If you do, I can say with confidence that your money will rarely be better spent. Along with donating, why not plan a spring or fall trip down to the area? If you are fortunate enough to be able to do this, I can almost guarantee it will be one of the highlights of your birding experiences. You also will not have the slightest doubt that your investment in this area is one of the best you will ever make. To donate, CLICK HERE NOW!

And with that, I will sign off so I can make a contribution myself!

Houston Audubon’s Bolivar Peninsula’s sanctuaries are not only vital for Texas birds, but for breeding birds throughout North America.

Turkey Day Texas Adventures Part 1: Pursuing Plovers

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Join Braden and me at our last book signing of the year at The Well-Read Moose in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho this Friday, November 23 at 6 p.m. Also be sure to share this post and subscribe to our blog in the box down on the column to the right. Happy Thanksgiving!

I just returned from speaking on an author panel at the annual convention of the National Council of Teachers of English in Houston, Texas. It was a terrific event, but I confess that I looked forward to Texas birding possibilities even more!

As soon as I picked up my rental car, I headed toward Winnie, Texas, racing the sun so that I could have an hour or so at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge before bedding down for the night. I arrived a little later than desired, mainly because of a couple of irresistible caracaras and a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher that almost literally flagged me down. Still, I managed thirty minutes driving the Shoveler Pond Loop. I needed at least an hour but managed fun looks at White and White-faced Ibises, Common Gallinules, a Black-bellied Whistling Duck, and a surprise Common Yellowthroat.

Semipalmated Plovers greeted me at Rollover Pass on the Bolivar Peninsula.

The next morning, after a stop at Rollover Pass, I headed to the Houston Audubon Society refuge at the tip of the Bolivar Peninsula. Before the trip, Braden had been drilling me on plovers, and his work paid off. Plovers are well-known for their ability to distract potential predators by faking wing injuries or sitting on “false nests.” Except for the ubiquitous Killdeer, however, they were a group I’d never knuckled down and studied before and I hoped to see all of the Big Five on my list: Black-bellied, Snowy, Wilson’s, Piping, and Semipalmated. At Rollover Pass, I’d found a number of Semipalmated, so that left me only four more at the Bolivar sanctuary.

Unfortunately, the long beach of the sanctuary seemed bereft of the numbers of shorebirds I had hoped for and I struggled to ID many of the birds in their winter plumages. I patiently began picking away at them, though. “That’s a Willet. I know that one. Those are Sanderlings. Hm…is that a Dunlin? I’ll have to ask Braden about that one later.”

Winter-plumage Black-bellied Plovers were one of several shorebirds I at first couldn’t identify. Once I got them, though, I got ’em!

Then . . . jackpot. Suddenly, I was seeing plovers in all directions. The problem? Identifying them! The two kinds around me looked very similar. Both were tiny and had broken breastbands. Individuals of both also had leg bands. Still, one kind was definitely darker than the other and they had distinctly different-colored legs. When I showed my photos to Braden, he affirmed my thoughts: I had seen both Snowy and Piping Plovers. As a bonus, I saw numerous Black-bellied Plovers, too!

I didn’t realize until after my visit that Piping Plovers are an endangered species, with only an estimated 8000 individuals according to BirdLife International.

Four out of five plovers? I’d take it—especially because Piping and Snowy Plovers are both endangered species due to their preference for the same beach habitats that humans enjoy. These little, cool birds definitely made up for the shortage of gulls, whimbrels, jaegers, and other birds I’d also hoped to test myself against.

Even better, my Thanksgiving Texas birding adventures had just begun . . .

This Snowy Plover surprised me as I’d only seen them on the West Coast before. Note the darker facial markings and differently-colored legs than the Piping Plover in the previous photo.