Where the Queen Isabella Causeway lands on the island, a paved walkway (the "SPI Gateway Project") crosses the tidal flats and black mangrove stands on both sides of the approach, with parking between the causeway lanes near the Padre Ballí statue. Shorebirds, gulls, and terns roost on these flats, and TPWD notes that migrants use the exotic plantings in the median in spring and fall. Across the bay in Port Isabel (LTC 033) the shoreline and shallow bay hold brown pelicans, cormorants, waterfowl, herons and egrets, and shorebirds, and the trail entry mentions the "Mangrove" form of the yellow warbler, a Mexican subspecies group whose presence in the mangroves here is one of the area's specialties (the Coastal Tip Christmas Bird Count logged two in December 2024). Bay tours from Port Isabel offer a boat-based way to see the spoil islands and the lagoon's birds.
Bird gently
Stay on public paths, give resting and nesting birds room, keep voices low around blinds, and avoid crowding a bird for a photograph. Sightings are never guaranteed.