Audubon's Dr. Paul Gray reports from this year's Winter Shorebird Survey on Lake Okeechobee. Enjoy:
The annual Winter Shorebird Survey is a relatively new effort to record the distribution and abundance of waterbirds in Florida. On February 5, I conducted the survey on the Lake Okeechobee Sanctuaries with Tyler Beck, avian ecologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. These Sanctuaries were designated by the Governor and Cabinet in 1938 to be managed cooperatively between Audubon and the Commission.
This survey is focused specifically on ducks, shorebirds, terns and gulls, wading birds and raptors. Species NOT counted include songbirds, cranes, rails or coots, vultures, doves and other groups. Although this leaves birds uncounted, it allows focus on birds of interest. In our case, we were relieved not to count coots and gallinules as they are so abundant they would have monopolized our time. As it was, we often encountered open areas with so many species that I could not record them all.
We tallied 38 species within the count groups, including 5 gull and tern species, 7 shorebirds, 10 wading birds, and just 4 duck species. Most abundant were Ring-necked Ducks at more than 1100, most fun for me might have been the 17 Everglade Snail Kites, 39 Limpkins, and 9 American Bitterns. Some floating tussocks had gulls and terns stacked on them.At a water level of about 14.5 feet, the lake marshes are almost entirely flooded with little area shallow enough for shorebirds. And most of the shallows have too much vegetation for shorebirds. We did find a concentrated group in the southwest end of Indian Prairie marsh where the plants were thinner and 7 shorebird species were present. This region also had numerous Glossy and White Ibis flocks with smatterings of other waders. We did not count them, but there were at least 1000 migratory Sandhill Cranes across this large marsh.
This was our first count on Okeechobee and we plan to continue them. There are surprisingly few systematic counts recorded for the lake—one by the Corps when levels were deep and shorebirds scarce, and one co-authored by me when levels were extremely low and shorebirds extremely abundant. By doing annual counts we will be able to develop a more representative data set of Okeechobee’s shorebird habitat. Tyler also is FFWCC’s first avian ecologist to focus almost exclusively on the lake, which will help us build our knowledge.
