Photo by Tom Middleton
Thank you for helping us count shorebirds!
The 2025 Puget Sound Shorebird Count (PSSC) took place on November 29th, 2025.
It was a great year for shorebird viewing– we counted a total of 29,230 shorebirds and 78 raptors across 23 sites in the Puget Sound! Dunlin dominated the leaderboards again, with a grand total of 26,264 individuals, accounting for almost 90% of all shorebird detections. New species from last year’s survey include the black turnstone and whimbrel!
Thank you to all 42 of our volunteer citizen scientists who braved the early morning cold to help us contribute data to the Pacific Flyway Shorebird Survey, a long-term monitoring program for wintering shorebirds led by Point Blue Conservation Science.
The Puget Sound Shorebird Count, which has been conducted annually since 2012, collects information from over 24 sites, including Samish, Padilla, and Port Susan Bays. Got binoculars and scopes? Love birds? Want to participate in the next count? Fill out the sign-up form linked below! Contact Isabel Brofsky (ibrofsky@ecoinst.org) with any questions and to be added for our mailing list for future volunteer opportunities!
VOLUNTEER RESOURCES: MAPS, DIRECTIONS, AND PROTOCOLS
Background
In the winter of 2012, Ecostudies Institute, in collaboration with Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife and US Forest Service International Program, began coordinating a citizen-science winter shorebird monitoring effort in Puget Sound. The goal of this effort is to provide a mechanism to monitor long-term changes in shorebird populations in Puget Sound, while simultaneously contributing to a large-scale, flyway-wide shorebird monitoring effort called the Pacific Flyway Shorebird Survey, which is coordinated by Point Blue Conservation Science.
Shorebirds using the Pacific Flyway are dependent upon a network of widely spaced estuarine sites between the Arctic and South America for wintering and migrating to and from their breeding grounds. Shorebirds also have exhibited long-term population declines. The lack of broad-scale coordinated monitoring along the Pacific Flyway limits our ability to understand the problem and design conservation strategies to benefit shorebirds.
In Washington State, Puget Sound contains 26 estuarine sites that support >1,000 shorebirds. However, the major stopover and wintering areas are located in four large estuaries in northern Puget Sound.
Citizen scientists counting shorebirds at a site on Skagit Bay.
Key Results
The graphs below summarize last year’s shorebird count results (left), as well as abundance trends across our PSSC sites from 2012-2025 (right).
We have built a solid foundation of shorebird monitoring in Puget Sound that we plan to continue in the future. With the amount of estuary restoration taking place in Puget Sound, this data will be extremely valuable in describing some of the long term effects of those conservation actions. Read more about our work on the effects of estuary restoration on birds.
If you would like to volunteer for our Puget Sound Shorebird Count, please contact us.