- ANNOUNCER: The Texas Parks and Wildlife Television Series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure: it's what we share.

- NARRATOR: Coming up on Texas Parks and Wildlife... - This bird is really, really unique in the way that it flies and the way that it forages.

- We're on the Goliad Paddling Trail on the San Antonio River.

You don't have to be a skilled kayaker in order to enjoy the river.

- We had a good burn here today.

They learned something and we got a little ground with some fire on it, which is a good thing.

[theme music] ♪ ♪ - NARRATOR: Texas Parks and Wildlife, a television series for all outdoors.

[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 bird's feeding along the shoreline, is that its 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] [birds chirping] [gentle music] [wind blowing] - Prairies are one of the most important things that we have to conserve, and they're certainly the rarest.

Much less than one percent is left.

- We have a remarkable diversity out here, over 100 different species.

[upbeat music] - Fortunately, we had a board member at the time whose name was Mickey Burleson, who, herself, had restored a native prairie along with her husband.

- DAVID: In doing that, they pioneered the how to of restoring prairie in Texas.

- Those trees do tend to spread out on the prairie and I'm always fighting them.

In fact, next week I'll be doing some spot spraying for some of those trees that I don't want out here 'cause they will take over the prairie if you let it be.

- DAVID: Word has to travel by word of mouth.

People aren't gonna do something very personal to their land without talking to somebody who's done it.

- We would walk out here and it might be five years before us, we could see that a seed had germinated and all of a sudden that plant was everywhere.

- So having testimonials from people like Mickey and Bob that we did this and these were the benefits, has been very pivotal in encouraging more people to conserve prairie.

- But this is the most rewarding probably yet.

These are our babies.

[majestic music] - There's a combination of things that we're looking at right now, but ultimately, I think it's really just to try to work with those landowners and figure out how we can together value these ecosystem services that this land can provide.

[gentle music] This land can provide water benefits, it can provide carbon benefits, it can provide grassland benefits, and land restoration benefits.

♪ ♪ - DAVID: The Clymer family were original settlers.

They came from a place where you didn't plow your ground.

So instead of doing what everybody else did and dragging a plow through it, once you do that, it really doesn't ever come back in terms of the animal and plant diversity.

- And to have a place like Clymer that's available for kids and other people to go out to, they can see it and touch it and learn it, and hopefully then appreciate it and wanna keep it.

We fight this battle continuously that, you know, if you want this generation or any of the next ones to protect something, you have to teach them about it.

[machines humming] - You stand on the preserve and all around you, you see the towers and the stacks for industrial development.

And you've got, what?

2,000 acres of native prairie there.

[soft upbeat music] And it's open land, open prairie.

♪ ♪ And when you go out there today, you can see how special that property is, to be in that location and to be a coastal prairie.

♪ ♪ - When people think about the outdoors, a lot of times they look west, they look to the hill country, they look to the Gulf Coast, they don't look at their own backyard.

And for that reason, I think the prairie landscapes have been overlooked.

♪ ♪ - And some of these areas that still haven't changed much are just kind of important for me, spiritually, emotionally.

It's very regenerative.

♪ ♪ - This is where I'm going to be buried someday.

This is where Bob's buried.

And we had always liked this spot.

And right before he died, he brought me over here and he said, "That's where I want it."

So that's where it is.

[upbeat music] - SUZANNE: What we wanna do is make sure that we can keep the land as together as possible, reduce fragmentation.

Working with landowners to protect a very important natural resource.

[upbeat music] - And so to come to some understanding of how much had been lost made a real impact on me.

And so to do what we could to help keep the little that was still there was important.

[majestic music] [upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - CHARLES CLAPSADDLE: We're on the Goliad Paddling Trail on the San Antonio River.

It's up a little bit, kind of fast compared to what it usually is, but nice.

[upbeat music] - WESLEY: Little green out here.

- SHAUN: Yeah, it's a little green.

- WESLEY: Lot of katydids.

- We do have a paddling trail here, and we were actually the first state park to have a paddling trail site designated inside a state park.

- WESLEY: It's a wide river, really is.

- BRENDA: It's about 6.1 miles of beautiful pristine river.

The site here in our park is the take out site.

The other developed areas to get on the paddling trail are north of our park.

So once you get to the park, people have to get off the river unless they want to continue to float with no easy access to get off.

- WESLEY: Better than schoolwork.

- Yeah, I'm glad we're out of school for summer.

What I like about here is the scenery, the nature, all the birds and stuff.

The river is real calm.

A good place just to sit out, hang out, and canoe.

- It's a coastal stream, so it has muddy banks.

Grass and trees grow right down to the bank.

You usually see a lot of wildlife because of that.

- Lots of trees.

Water.

- CHARLES: It's good for families.

You don't have to be a skilled canoeist or a kayaker in order to enjoy the river.

Right now, we're just drifting, we're floating on the current.

- I go out here every so often.

I like the river but this is the first time I've been like solo kayaking.

It's always pretty out here.

- BRENDA: People love to come here and camp.

They spend the weekend here and enjoy the float.

It's very quiet and serene.

- CHARLES: The six and a half miles current trail, I can make in an hour and a half, most people take a little over two hours.

We will go pretty close to downtown Goliad, a couple of blocks from the courthouse and you wouldn't know you were near a town.

[crickets and cicadas chirp] You hear crickets and cicadas and birds, but... nothing that sounds like humans.

It's a nice friendly river.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music] - BLAINE: Well a long time ago when I first started going to deer camps, we had names for every place.

[water trickling] You called it "Jake's Hole," or you called it the "Rockin' Chair Stand" because there was a rockin' chair somebody put in the blind.

There's three hills on the place, and there's three branches that run into this creek named after the grandkids.

So when you say, "Hey, let's go over to Camden's Hill and do this."

Everybody knows right where you're talkin' about.

We can come up here and just enjoy bein' away from big urban center, wherever that might be, and just kick back and have a good time, just enjoyin' Mother Nature.

We named it "Rocky Hill Ranch."

[upbeat music] [ATV rumbling] - CHIS: Blaine is the landowner that worked down in the refineries for 20 some-odd years and then wanted to buy a place.

He started out as a deer hunter, wanted to have a place for his kids to come deer hunt.

And he started learnin' about the different habitat management activities and has just done everything that he could possibly do to improve habitat for wildlife.

And he cares about the land.

- BLAINE: Last January, we planted some longleaf pine.

There's one right there.

Looky there, a big candle on it.

Right now, they're actively growing.

Once that candle is set, those needles will come up around the candle and protect it, and then it's okay to run a mild fire through it.

[tractor engine starts] I never had any experience with prescribed fire until we bought this place.

Ran into Mr. Chris Shank with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

- CHIS: You got about how many miles per hour did you say a minute ago?

- BLAINE: 2.5?

- CHIS: And you can feel it.

- BLAINE: He was benevolent enough to show me and my family how to do prescribed fire, and has since kind of passed the drip torch on down to us.

- CHIS: There you go.

Our forests in East Texas can really get overgrown, to where a man or an animal can barely walk through the forest.

By regular burning, we open up those landscapes.

Essentially, we get that ecosystem back to its normally functioning condition.

- Eva, can you respond to me?

- Talk less loud please.

- All right, 10-4.

[Blaine laughs] - CHIS: We've worked with Blaine's family before burning, and we've worked with his adult children.

But the really cool thing today is we worked with his grandchildren.

[fire crackling] Grandpa Blaine became the burn boss and directed and guided the kids.

- Just drop a line up there and go about 10 feet and let's watch that.

Well, every little kid is a pyromaniac to some degree.

[laughing] - CHIS: This is the next generation, and if we don't pass down these skills and understanding, who's gonna carry that out.

- Eva, wait, what's the humidity?

- 68.

- BLAINE: We had a good burn here today.

They learned somethin' and we got a little ground with some fire on it, which is a good thing.

Put all those nutrients from whatever you're burnin' back in the dirt, and the next time you come two weeks later, you got a green carpet there where you burned.

More food for the wildlife.

[relaxed music] And we're all stewards of what God gave us here to take care of.

Biggest plus for me is seeing these young kids enjoy being here.

- Holy cow.

- BLAINE: Later on in life, if you run into a problem of some kind, you might fall back on somethin' you learned out here just stompin' around in the woods.

Place is full of life lessons.

You can learn all kind of things out here.

[crickets chirping] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] [wind blowing] This series is supported in part by Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation -- conserving the wild things and wild places of Texas, thanks to members across the state.

Additional funding provided by the Toyota Tundra.

Your local Toyota dealers are proud to support outdoor recreation and conservation in Texas.

Adventure: it's what we share.