[uplifting music]
- NARRATOR: Biologists are about to do a well-check
on one of the most important islands
for coastal birds in Texas.
- TREY BARRON: All right, for those of you that haven't been
to Chester Island, welcome.
I've got four groups, Dan, you'll have the green area
in the middle that's the thick brush.
Just move slow, try to be quiet
and get through as quick as possible.
- NARRATOR: It's the beginning of the nesting season
and this is quick bird count.
A rare chance to get a population estimate
on all these coastal birds.
- Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
So, I'm counting White Ibis, they're looking pretty good!
I think I have in the sixties so far
and we've just got started.
- This counts' all part of the
Texas Colonial Water Bird Society's survey.
It's an annual census that occurs
over a two-week period.
Let's walk check this side over here.
Yeah, we're trying to monitor the status of all these species,
some of the species on the island are doing really well.
Brown Pelicans are probably the highest numbers in here.
- NARRATOR: But along the sandy shore, the team searches
for one bird in particular.
A bird sometimes seen skimming shorelines
and feeding in flight--
the Black Skimmer.
This unique coastal bird is on a downward trend
that has biologists concerned.
- TREY: Their numbers have been in decline over the
last probably 40 years, they've gone from 10,000 plus
nesting pairs on the coast
down to around 3,000 nesting pairs on the coast.
It's a species that we're definitely monitoring.
- NARRATOR: No one spends more time monitoring these birds...
- Let's try from this side.
- NARRATOR: ...than David Newstead.
- DAVID: So today we are in the Laguna Madre,
a stronghold of Black Skimmers,
- BIOLOGIST: There's birds everywhere!
- And this is sort of part of a continuing series of
studies we've been doing to try and better understand
the species itself, the species biology,
but also why it's declining.
[Skimmers call]
- NARRATOR: To better understand these skimmers,
David and his team need to catch some.
He's using a common trapping tool,
a noose mat,
with hundreds of tiny leg snares.
- DAVID: People have been doing this kind of thing for eons.
It's kind of a pain, but an effective way of trapping birds.
[birds call]
What we're going to do is,
I'm going to go and place this near a nest.
[birds call]
Get out of there as quickly as possible
and stand and wait.
All right!
[Black Skimmer calls]
Oh!
The bird walked right through
and incubated right on top of it.
God!
- DAVID: This bird is really, really unique in the way
that it flies and the way that it forages.
You'll see that when its flying along a shoreline,
it's actually dragging its lower bill
along the edge of the water.
As soon as it hits a fish,
it quickly snaps shut
and consumes the fish.
The other thing you'll notice when the birds feeding
along the shoreline, is that it's wings,
instead of flapping just outward,
its wings are tucked back
and that's so that it can skim along the surface of the water
and not get hit by waves.
[soothing music]
Ew, land, land, land, ew!
That might be him, that might be him!
There it is that's the one right there!
- CODY SEARS: That's our boy!
[splashing]
- DAVID: We are going to need to be as minimally
present as possible.
We're going to go and retrieve the bird as soon as
that trap is sprung.
- CODY: Sweet!
- DAVID: And remove ourselves from the colony.
So, this is a female, that we captured here.
Cody can you deal with the data sheets!
- CODY: Yeah, I got data.
- DAVID: Going to do A99.
Once we have the bird in hand,
we're going to take measurements of the bird.
One zero six point zero, head and bill.
And then we're going to be putting on a small tag
that is basically communicating with satellites,
with GPS satellites.
And recording that information.
The feathers back in place, the transmitter sort of
disappears against the black of the birds back.
- CODY: This is the first time I've seen em up close,
so I didn't know their bills were so narrow.
No way, I get to touch em.
Oh wow, that's so cool.
Hi there!
How you doing?
You can see that prehistoric dinosaur sitting in this
little feathered creature in front of me.
Little velociraptor for sure.
- It's sort of a fun part of my job being able to handle
these amazing animals,
but it's also a lot of stress--
I really want to get this bird back to the colony.
- DAVID: Good!
So, the tags that we are putting on right now
are going to provide GPS level accuracy.
Be able to see everywhere it's been every 10 minutes
since we put the tag on!
- NARRATOR: David now knows exactly what type of habitat
they prefer, for feeding and nesting.
It turns out with sea level rise, and higher tides,
those favorite nesting sites are shrinking.
- DAVID: There's a limited number of spaces in,
along the Texas coast in each different bay system.
There getting smaller and smaller over the years.
We've seen a lot of these islands in the Laguna
just vanish in the past uh, 10, 20 years.
- NARRATOR: And some of the bigger islands have
fishing camps, taking away some prime nesting habitat.
- DAVID: It's got six cabin leases on it,
there's actually two islands with six cabins.
All of these bare areas are just the perfect substrate
for Skimmers and Terns.
So, you know, size-wise, there's more suitable space
here on this one island alone
than there is in just about the rest of the Laguna.
- NARRATOR: With loss of habitat out in the bays,
the birds have adapted
and set up a nesting colony here in Rockport.
A city park is now Skimmer central.
- DAVID: What's different about this is it's
connected to a mainland site--
it's not an isolated little island out there,
this is in the middle of a beach park.
- NARRATOR: Though part of the park is protected,
nesting numbers are still down.
- DAVID: It's hard to say what this colony is doing
because they don't seem to do really that well.
They will fledge a few chicks,
some years it's been better than others.
And the overall productivity is still lower
than we'd like to see.
- NARRATOR: They hope a camera can shed some light
on the problem.
- It's on solar and its ah, recharging a
couple of AA batteries to keep it running so we don't have
to disturb the colony too often to check these out.
- DAVID: That's taking a photo every minute.
If the birds get up for any reason, then hopefully,
we can understand what it was that got the birds up
from that camera.
- NARRATOR: With cameras at nesting sites along the coast,
David's team discovers the chief culprit
disturbing the colonies.
It's us.
- DAVID: Some of these islands are getting disturbed 20,30
times a day, and the average time that the
colony is off the nest during a human disturbance
is typically about eight minutes,
and that's very, very, a very long time,
especially in the heat of the summer in Texas.
- NARRATOR: It's actually illegal to get too close
to rookery islands during the nesting season.
- DAVID: So, this is one of the big threats to birds is people
fishing too close, wanting to get too close to islands.
- ANGLER: I'm in a big fishing tournament right now,
I'd appreciate you give me some room!
- So, this guy's fishing a tournament
and even though this guy's too close to the island,
he feels that his need and right to fish
too close to the island is more important
than giving the birds a safe place to nest.
- NARRATOR: If this species is going to survive,
it's up to us to make sure these fledglings
have a fighting chance.
- DAVID: Without adding young birds, new birds coming into
the population, the population's just going to continue
to decline, we want to make sure that we provide every bit of
protection that we can for the birds so that they can
hopefully nest successfully raise young.
- NARRATOR: Before finishing their early summer
bird count...
- TREY: Here's our nesting Skimmers right here!
- NARRATOR: The biologists do, in fact, find some skimmers.
And their nesting colony looks promising.
- TREY: There's quite a few pairs here,
looks like several have got scrapes!
They've got a lot of challenges they have to overcome,
so to see an area like this where we've got you know
pretty high elevation, they're back away from the beach
so hopefully human disturbance won't be a big deal,
so this one has a pretty good chance.
- NARRATOR: After the struggles David has seen throughout his
study, this small population provides some hope!
- TREY: The future of the skimmers on the coast,
it's all about reproduction.
So, it's important that we have protected areas
where the birds can come and nest.
And let their populations continue to grow!
[light wind, birds chirping]