Living on the Edge

When a bird lays an egg on Louisiana’s coast, nothing can go wrong. 

During the incubation period, which depending on species can last from sixteen to twenty-eight days, the egg lays in its scrape—an indention scratched out of the sand and shell debris by its male parent. When the parent isn’t sitting on it, the egg is totally exposed to the elements, whether that be the blistering heat of an early Louisiana summer or the blustery chaos of hurricane season. Shorebird eggs make great meals for local coyotes and ghost crabs. And camouflaged as they are with their speckled, neutral colors—many fall victim to inattentive passersby. On the beaches of Cameron Parish, these include the hooves of grazing cattle and the tires of beach-driving tourists. 

If they survive incubation—they’ll hatch and emerge into a world in which they are at the bottom of the food chain. They won’t fly for another three to four weeks. 

This is all assuming that the baby bird’s parents can find a suitable place to nest at all, as more and more miles of Louisiana’s coastline are consumed by Gulf waters each year. “I’ve seen birds use parking lots,” said Katie Barnes, Audubon Delta’s Louisiana Coastal Stewardship Manager, “because of the pressures on the coast.” 

Barnes manages Audubon Delta’s Coastal Bird Beach-Nesting Stewardship Program in Louisiana, which aims to both protect and study the five species of migratory birds that nest on the coastlines of Louisiana’s mainland. 

“We work mainly on mainland beaches that people have access to,” she explained to me as we both looked out on the Gulf from Cameron Parish’s Rutherford Beach. The program works on over 1,100 acres of habitat on Grand Isle, Elmer’s Island, and on Cameron Parish beaches. “These beaches are where the human disturbance comes in. It’s where we’re going to have the most impact on birds, and where we can step in and be stewards of the beach, protecting and monitoring them.” 

The program got its start in the wake of cleanup efforts after the 2010 BP Oil Spill, which occurred right at the onset of nesting season that year. While conservation organizations like Audubon were actively working to minimize the impacts of both the spill and cleanup efforts on wildlife, Erik Johnson—who had recently been hired as a conservation biologist for Audubon—noted a significant gap in data when it came to mitigating challenges for coastal nesting birds on the mainland.

“When the oil spill hit, there were a lot of unknowns about how to direct cleanup efforts to minimize the impacts on these birds, because there wasn’t a good source of data to know how the birds might be affected,” said Johnson, who now serves as Audubon Delta’s Director of Bird Conservation. “Particularly these sort of secretive brown nesting birds that you can’t see from a plane or survey from a boat. You have to kind of be there with feet on the ground.” 

Johnson led the initiative to generate funding for a dedicated surveying program modeled after similar monitoring work conducted on the Florida coast. In 2012 Audubon Delta was able to hire its first seasonal technicians to monitor nesting areas on Grand Isle, with a focus on minimizing human disturbance and assessing threats. In 2016, they extended the program to include Cameron Parish; Barnes was one of the first technicians to work on the new sites. Over the past ten years, the program has acquired enough funding to further develop dedicated teams and leadership, facilitate conservation methods such as fencing around key nesting areas, and further community outreach initiatives—and continues to seek funding to expand and increase the program’s reach.  

Today, Barnes trains and oversees the program’s seasonal technicians, who are responsible for finding, monitoring, and recording data on each year’s nests. Standing outside of a mile-and-a-half stretch of fenced-off nesting area, she demonstrated the intricate methodology of completing a nest survey—starting by spraying my shoes with Scent-Away. “The way we walk around in there is very strategic,” she explained. “We try to mitigate as much of our interaction with the birds as possible. We’re very careful, and we’ve been doing this with a standardized protocol. The spray is just an extra parameter we use to protect the birds from potential predators.” 

During the nesting season, which typically lasts from April to mid-to-late-August, technicians visit sites like this one in the mornings beginning at sunrise until just before the heat sets in, minding every single step as they seek out nests, count up birds, figure out how many nesting pairs there are, and record coordinates. They also band chicks as they hatch, as well as their parents. 

“If you’ve got the same male coming back every year, you’re like ‘Okay yeah, that’s P3,’” said Barnes. “He’s always at that beach, and he’s always in that area. It’s very interesting to see not only these same birds coming back—like your old friends—but also being able to see their annual survivorship. How well do they do every year with breeding? How many chicks do they fledge every year?”

The result is a set of data that allows scientists like Barnes and Johnson to monitor the overall success of the year’s nesting season and compare it to years prior, and to better understand the reasons behind nest failures, drops in population, and changes in bird behavior. “We look at things like ‘How many chicks are fledged each year compared to the number of pairs on the beach?’” Johnson explained. “Things like that give us estimates on how these bird populations are doing, and we can also hone in and identify what the particular threats are.” 

It’s part science and part advocacy, said Barnes. Johnson agreed: “We use the science each year to help us inform the strategies needed to go forward in terms of identifying and prioritizing what the biggest threats are and at which beaches, determining which stakeholders we should engage with. We want to make sure we maximize the impact that we can have.” 

When I visited Rutherford in late April, the nesting season had been ongoing for around a month. The priority species the program monitors are least terns, Wilson’s plovers, and common nighthawks; now with a small number of snowy plovers and black skimmers. “The Wilsons arrive first,” said Barnes, explaining that they and the nighthawks are solitary nesters, meaning that they form a pair bond that together defends a particular territory for nesting. In comparison, the least terns are colonial nesters: they nest in colonies ranging from just a few pairs to hundreds. “The least terns arrive in early April, but kind of hang around and try to figure out where they want to go. Around the twenty-fifth of April is usually when we start finding those first nests.” 

Standing right outside the fenced-in nesting area, Barnes set up her spotting scope and tripod—tools that allow her and her technicians to observe birds and find nests from a distance, minimizing physical interactions as much as possible. As she scanned the area through the scope, three tiny gray birds arose from the sandy expanse—squeaking aggressively and performing a series of acrobatic dive bombs right above our heads. “This is the way that they indicate to us that they’re upset,” said Barnes. “We’re in their space.” It also means, she said, that we are probably pretty close to a nesting colony. 

“Oh look, there is a least tern right there who just sat down on her nest.” Barnes waved me over to peer into the scope. “She’s incubating. Look, they’re really cute. Very squeaky.” Through the lens, I could see the tiny gray bird, with its black cap and yellow beak, as though it were mere inches away. The white feathers on its belly just barely peeked out as it nestled into the sand. 

Barnes peered into the scope one more time before she started packing it up, readying to walk in and get a closer look. “The way we do this,” she said, “I’ll find a landmark—a piece of trash or vegetation. That will give me an idea of where the nest is in relation to where we are. And when we get to it, we’ll just do everything we need to do very quickly. Then, we don’t just turn around and go back where we came. We can’t leave a dead end at the nest, because it could lead a predator right to it. You have to continue walking straight past it.” 

Barnes chose a patch of yellow flowers near the nest as our landmark, intending to take a path that would pass near a spot where she observed a Wilson’s plover giving her “vibes”—suggesting another possible nesting site. I followed just behind her as we entered the habitat, matching her footsteps almost exactly, absolutely terrified of stomping on an egg. “It takes some time, but after doing this for a while you start to develop an eye for this stuff,” she said. 

Just seconds later: “Oh, there it is.” My eyes followed her finger, but I was unable to register the eggs until we got within three feet of them. Two blue speckled eggs the size of large grapes, curled into a pile of seashells. There were then about five least terns dancing in the sky just above us, squawking in protest. Barnes told me to find a spot where I could get a good photo, and to plant my feet. She then pulled a popsicle stick from her bag and sprayed it with Scent-away. “Since this one hasn’t been marked by our team, I’ll go ahead and mark it,” she said, calling it “Nest 600” and planting the stick in the ground about a foot away from the eggs. This will help team members identify the nest more easily from a distance with the scope for monitoring over the course of the next two months. Barnes entered the coordinates into the GIS, and then we continued on towards the vibey Wilson’s plover. Except she had gone, vanished without a trace. 

Though Wilson’s plovers get started nesting the earliest, their nests are usually more difficult to locate than least terns’, Barnes explained. “Wilsons are much more secretive,” she said. “least terns are like ‘here I am,’ all up in your face and squawking and diving. The Wilsons will let you know that they’re there, but they’re like ‘Good luck finding my nest.’” Nighthawks, she said, don’t even scrape out a nest; they just lay their eggs right there on the ground. 

Continuing on through the habitat and into a strip of dunes and vegetation that separate it from the recreational beach, Barnes pointed out that Audubon’s fencing efforts had coincidentally been bolstered by a separate set of fencing targeted towards beach restoration, installed by the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. The two fences together have helped contribute to a significant section of regrowth that also serves as an additional barrier between the nesting habitat and human activity on the beach. 

The environment is ever-changing, though. Two years ago, this beach looked like an utterly different place following the back-to-back devastation of Hurricanes Laura and Delta. “Everything on this beach was completely leveled,” said Barnes. “All the vegetation was scoured.” Though the storms destroyed habitats for countless species, birds and otherwise, they actually created a habitat that was very attractive to shorebirds, who prefer wide-open spaces. Nesting numbers for these birds saw a significant increase in 2021. 

With a still relatively short history of data to work with, set up against the increasingly unpredictable weather patterns of our warming world, it remains difficult to anticipate the ways events like this will affect Louisiana’s shorebirds from year to year. This is exacerbated as the state continues to pursue much-needed coastal restoration projects, which can further disrupt bird habitats. The Stewardship Program has incorporated these challenges into its efforts, studying the ways these projects affect birds in real-time and working to educate the people behind them to keep the birds in mind. 

“We’re looking at responses to restoration, so that we can figure out future management implications and educate not only the public, but the restoration planners that are creating these projects,” said Barnes. “We can say, ‘Hey, these projects are great, and they’re even helping out populations. But Wilson’s plovers are a species of concern, and they need certain habitat requirements and certain types of substrates to thrive. What can we do to protect them?” 

For shorebirds in particular, things like beach renourishment, dune creation, and marsh creation tend to be positive overall as more suitable habitat is created. But Johnson noted that the data shows that nesting on recently-restored sites is actually lower than it should be. The obstacle, they realized, was the fact that the new sites also tend to be very popular for predators, particularly coyotes. “It’s more than just putting sand on a beach,” said Johnson. “We sort of need to be thinking about the whole ecosystem.”    

On occasion, though, the shifting world aligns just right—and creates the perfect environment for new life. Due in no small part to the efforts of the Stewardship Program, 2021 was deemed the best nesting season in Louisiana since 2016. And not one, but two new species chose the Cameron Parish coastline as a nesting site. 

Black skimmers—black and white seabirds recognizable by their distinctively-shaped orange bills—regularly nest on Louisiana’s remote barrier islands, with only failed attempts occurring on the mainland beaches for as long as the program has been collecting data. In late July of last year, technicians discovered a scrape with four chicken-sized skimmer eggs on the site of the Cameron Parish Shoreline Project at Holly Beach. Two more nests were discovered before the end of the season. 

“Part of it was that they’re responding positively to the restoration,” said Barnes. “And part of it is, you know, we’re out there stewarding the beach, putting up fencing around it, protecting them and allowing them to be successful. We actually stewarded them all the way into late September. Our season was an extra month and a half long because they are [sometimes] late nesters. And they actually made it to fledge.” 

2021 was also the very first year in recorded history that the rare snowy plover successfully fledged chicks in Louisiana. Usually a winter resident in the state, the snowy plover was first documented to ever nest here in 1994, with a few scattered nesting records since. “But last year was the first time that multiple nests actually hatched and fledged,” said Johnson. “We successfully fledged three chicks, which doesn’t sound like much, but we’re hoping that it’s the beginning of a population establishing itself in Southwest Louisiana. It’s really very exciting.” 

Speaking with Johnson over the phone about a week after my visit to Rutherford, he shared that Barnes had since discovered a 2022 snowy plover nest in a spot near last year’s fledglings. “Katie and I ran down there on Sunday, and put an enclosure around the nest, so that the bird can move in and out of the cage and incubate the eggs, but coyotes can’t get to the nest.” 

Just four days before we went to press, we got the update that Louisiana’s first baby plovers of 2022 had officially hatched, safe and sound. 

Back on Rutherford Beach, still carefully making our way through the habitat, Barnes observed the immense challenges the birds she stewards face: “They’re so vulnerable, you know. They’re living right on the edge.” She asked me to imagine what it must be like to sit on an egg for three weeks in the beating sun, only to lose it and start all over again. “They face so many challenges to reproduce, and they only get one chance every year.” Hers is rewarding work, she said, with very clear indications that impacts are being made. “This is just such an important place, from a biodiversity perspective.” 

Suddenly, she stopped and pointed: “Oh, look there!” The elusive Wilson’s plover nest, three eggs nestled against a burst of vegetation. To me, they looked very similar to the least tern eggs, if a tiny bit bigger and more speckled. Barnes’ excitement was palpable: “The team is going to be so excited that I found this!” She marked the nest, took some photos, and put in the coordinates. Then, we walked on. 

Learn more about Audubon Delta’s conservation initiatives at audubon.org.