October 18, 2026
Claypoint Park sits on Back Bay Boulevard in Biloxi, just south of the railroad tracks near Point Cadet — you may have wondered why this stretch feels so productive for birding and photography, especially during migration. The answer turns out to be Katrina.
Before August 29, 2005, this area looked nothing like it does today. Point Cadet was a dense fishing community — homes, seafood businesses, marinas, the Marine Education Center, casino facilities, working waterfronts. When Katrina came ashore, a 32-foot storm surge hit the Point from three sides and destroyed roughly 90% of what stood there. Entire residential blocks, the marina, the aquarium — gone. What didn’t get rebuilt became open grass, vacant lots, early successional vegetation, and shoreline edge habitat. For birds, that kind of transitional open space is gold — exactly the mix that attracts sparrows, flycatchers, kingbirds, shrikes, migrant warblers, buntings, and shorebirds that wouldn’t have had a reason to stop here when buildings occupied the same ground.
What we’re birding today, in other words, is partly Katrina’s unintended legacy — twenty years of nature quietly reclaiming what the storm took.
I’ve been thinking about writing up the before-and-after story of the Biloxi Back Bay and Point Cadet area — what it looked like before Katrina, what the storm did, and what it’s become for birders since. Stay tuned.
Click the image to view full size and browse the gallery.
“What changed in the United States with Hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences.”
Al Gore
Love that Vermillion flycatcher, Rich!