This U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data release represents tabular and geospatial data for characterizing the soil texture and topography that may be relevant to Black Skimmer and Gull-billed tern nesting on bare ground sites across the U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico. These data characterize soil texture (e.g., sand or shell, loam), elevation, and distance to mean higher high water (MHHW) at 3-m for bare ground within 200 m of the MHHW on islands and mainland within the U.S. portion of the Northern Gulf of Mexico 2010. These data were used to characterize percent soil texture variables and topography index variables for Cronin et al.'s (2024) bare ground sites that may be relevant to Black Skimmer and Gull-billed Tern nesting. The soil texture, elevation, and distance to MHHW data may be reasonably used for other purposes within the study extent. The topography index is specific to Black Skimmer and Gull-billed Tern within the study extent and is based on a beach-nesting bird study that included Black Skimmer and was conducted in New Jersey, U.S. (Maslo et al. 2016).