Open-marsh water management (OMWM) manipulates selected areas of an estuarine marsh by constructing narrow, deep ditches that harbor resident populations of predators of mosquito larvae. It does not, however, alter the surrounding vegetation by deposition of spoil mounds. We censused the summer (breeding and nonbreeding) bird populations in two adjacent salt marsh sites on Topsail Island, North Carolina, for two summers before OMWM ditching occurred and for four seasons postditching. A total of 53 nonbreeding species and five breeding species of birds were encountered on the study sites. None of the interannual changes in bird populations can be attributed to OMWM.