Photo of some of the volunteers that helped clean up Oso CreekIn 1996, I co-founded a habitat protection partnership between Audubon and the City of Corpus Christi called "Project Sparkle". Through Project Sparkle, Audubon will advise the city about important bird sites that have been compromised by illegal access and illegal dumping. There are many such sites in the area, and many of the most heavily affected sites are also FNG nesting sites.
On May 2, 1998, we kicked off Project Sparkle by cleaning up Oso Creek, which supports nesting Least Terns, Snowy Plovers, Wilson's Plovers, Horned Larks, Nighthawks and Killdeers. Over 70 volunteers (mostly students from the local school district - Flour Bluff I.S.D.) helped clean up more than 13 tons of trash that had been illegally dumped at the site (including 100 tires, 2 boats, a sofa, and enough ugly carpeting to cover a football field!).
Photo of some of the volunteers that helped clean up Oso Creek
During the clean up, a Snowy Plover nest and a Killdeer nest were located. We flagged the nesting areas off and all of the kids and adults stopped to watch the adult birds return to the nest and resume incubation. We were careful to avoid disturbing these birds, and both nests were being tended at the end of the day. Several of the students that participated in the clean up were amazed to learn that there were birds that nested on the ground. The clean up was a very slick operation, due mostly to the outstanding organazational skills of Dawn Volk with the City¼s Solid Waste Services.
This site is scheduled to be permanently closed to vehicular traffic in the near future, and interpretive signs informing visitors about the sensitivity of the site will soon be in place. Back to the Waterbird Watch Homepage
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