Islands



  1. Bird Key - Stono
  2. Crab Bank
  3. Deveaux Bank
  4. Marsh Island
  5. Tomkins Island

Field Notes
Events
Contact


Bird Island Research Dept.


Bird Island Research Department is a collaborative research project in partnership with the 🍏 College of Charleston, 🌊 Coastal Expeditions Foundation, 🌱 The M.A.R.S.H. Project and the 📎 SC Office of Resilience.

B.I.R.D. aims to support ongoing community efforts to study, understand, and protect the bird island habitats of the Carolina Lowcountry. This interdisciplinary project brings together professors, students, field-based biologists, scientists and artists to unite storytelling with existing research.

Annotated Bibliographies


Meant to support ongoing research on the bird islands of coastal South Carolina, specifically focusing on nature-based solutions, as well as ecological and economic sustainability.  🤓



Welcome to B.I.R.D.


For the birdies.
For a resilient future on the coast. And for the stories that connect us.
The Bird Island Research Department (B.I.R.D.) is a collaborative research and storytelling project focused on the wild and beautiful and changing bird islands of the Carolina Lowcountry. Working alongside partners including the College of Charleston, Coastal Expeditions Foundation, the M.A.R.S.H. Project, SCDNR, and local community members, we explore how seabirds and shorebirds, marshes and islands, and people all shape the history and future of coastal life here in the Lowcountry.

From Crab Bank and Marsh Island to Deveaux Bank, Bird Key-Stono, and Tomkins Island, these near-shore islands provide key habitat and nesting grounds for seabirds and migratory shorebirds. They are also living laboratories to understand and enact ecological restoration and rewilding for the benefit of humans, birds, and coastal resilience.

Through fieldwork, photography, oral histories, mapping, film, student research, and citizen science, the B.I.R.D. team is working to make coastal science more accessible and engaging. We believe environmental storytelling can help communities better understand and protect the ecosystems we all depend on.

This project is also about action. Alongside research, we support habitat restoration, oyster reef building, native planting, shoreline resilience projects, and hands-on opportunities for students and community members to participate directly in conservation work.

Whether you are a birder, student, scientist, artist, fisherman, educator, or simply someone who is curious about the coast — welcome. Join us!

And remember the B.I.R.D. is the word!