Hello and welcome to the American Birding Podcast from the American Birding Association.

I am Nate Swick.

A little bit of good news from one of the ABA's best birding sites, South Padre Island in Texas this week.

Local bird organizations have been fighting for the better part of two years

to prevent a planned expansion of the South Padre Island Convention Center. That expansion

would have destroyed a patch of native habitat adjacent to the current center. It's not a huge

area, but it was one of the last remaining areas of native scrub

left on the island and has long been known by both local and visiting birders as an

excellent spot for birds. It's particularly important for migrants who, having just crossed

the Gulf of Mexico, are finding less and less cover to rest and recuperate

and feed in every year.

Further, you know, this particular site, it's part of a larger system of interconnected

green spaces up and down the island and, of course, part of the larger, lower Rio Grande

Valley birding area that is so well known and loved by

birders not only locally, but across the ABA area.

I actually remember the last time I was in the valley for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival,

and we spent a whole morning out at South Padre, including at this convention center site.

I'm hardly alone.

The convention center is the fifth

most birded hotspot in Texas if we go by eBird checklists. And there have been some spectacular

phenomena and, of course, amazing individual birds found at this site over the years. We all know

that unchecked development, you know, taken sort of broadly is one of the biggest

...