Content and photo by John Bloomfield, Travis Audubon President

I first planted my feet in the sands of the Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary in 2015, years before I would call Texas my home. What a birder’s dream it was. My wife and I were traveling with a friend from Houston Audubon, and we were making the rounds of the Upper Texas Coast hotspots from High Island to the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge (now Jocelyn Nungaray) to the Bolivar Peninsula.

It would be the first of many visits.

That day we saw 60 species, including 19 species of shorebirds and eight species of terns. More than 100 White Pelicans dotted the landscape, and overhead, wonders like Peregrine Falcons and Swallow-tailed Kites soared.

I was hooked.

There are few places in America where you can see such an abundance of shorebirds up close — so close you feel you could almost walk among them, while still being at a safe enough distance to keep from rattling them. It reminds me of Cape May, New Jersey, where I first fell in love with birding, or the barrier islands of South Carolina and Georgia. Bolivar Flats has a magic all its own. It’s not just the variety of species, but the sheer abundance. This abundance is possible only when all parts of the ecosystem work together — the land, the water, and the species that depend on it, including us. In winter, you can see more than 10,000 American Avocets gathering along the shallow waters. I was lucky enough to see about half that on one of my trips.

In the 1980s, Houston Audubon first took action to protect Bolivar Flats, and since that time, it has secured 1,240 acres of this critical habitat. The last missing piece of 27 acres is under a tight final purchase deadline of December 31, 2025.  $3 million is needed to prevent a planned development that would encroach upon the protected areas and bring permanent damage an ecosystem loved by birders worldwide.

The magic of Bolivar is all its own.

Last April, a TAS group visiting on a Birdathon trip saw 1,400 birds on the flats, many in breeding plumage, resting before completing their northward migration. With the shorebirds were hundreds of Black Skimmers and hundreds of terns sharing the sandbars with countless gulls and wading birds like the Roseate Spoonbill, or the Reddish Egret, dancing near the shoreline. Texas boasts more than 650 bird species, and nearly half have been reported along this precious bit of sand and the surrounding environment.

The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) has designated Bolivar Flats as a Globally Important Bird Area for its site of unique role as a migratory stopover and wintering location.  Houston Audubon estimates that on an annual basis, half a million birds depend on Bolivar Flats to rest and refuel.

Bolivar Flats is magic on the Gulf. Help keep it that way. It is a place well worth of saving.

To learn more about Bolivar Flats and how you can help, visit the Houston Audubon website here.