Audubon's Northeast Florida Policy Associate Monique Borboen-Abrams reports from her experience with the Mid-Winter Shorebird Survey. Thanks to Monique and all the participants for this year's event! Enjoy:
It is Friday morning at 10am and I am just about to start my survey route with my team for the 2012 statewide mid-winter shorebird survey.
Toward the south, 25 volunteers with Flagler Audubon Society (who initiated the survey with the US Fish and Wildlife Service a few years back) have been deployed in four teams to cover the county’s beaches. It's still early, but I have already heard of a Great Lake Piping Plover spotted by a team in Volusia County!
Here in St. Johns County, I have county staff and Guana-Tolomato-Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve volunteers surveying the beach north of me. To my south, six other teams are spread on the beaches, a mix of county, State Park and National Park staff, eco-tour operators, and Audubon volunteers. Our year-long beach bird volunteers are being helped by snowbirds, some all the way from Canada. And, as for the past two years, inland chapter members from Santa Fe Audubon are leading Fort Matanzas National Monument’s team.
Our survey of Porpoise Point, a beach bordering St.Augustine Inlet, turns up a few shorebirds but a good flock of terns and gulls. It also illustrates the pressures faced by beach birds. While we are counting the resting flock, three parties of pedestrians, two horses, and one car disturbed the birds. Too many beach-goers still don’t realize how important it is to go around a flock of birds instead of through it. Bird Stewards, we still have work ahead of us educating beach goers and promoting good beach bird etiquette!
Later in the evening, each team had a special moment to share; watching hundreds of gannets behind a shrimp boat, wondering where the skimmers - so abundant in December - went, or worrying about the high number of common loons found dead.
All noticed some laughing gulls getting their black head already: spring is upon us and it’s time to plan for our beach birds nesting season!
