Photo by Tom Middleton
Help Us Count Shorebirds!
The 2024 Puget Sound Shorebird Count (PSSC) took place between December 7th and December 11th, 2024, across over 20 sites from Olympia to Blaine, WA. This year we helped to add Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge to the annual count, collecting the first datapoint in what will be an exciting long-term insight into the health of migratory shorebird populations in our region.
This year, we counted almost 10,000 birds in total, including over 7,500 dunlin which led the species count by a large margin. New species from last year’s survey include short-eared owl and long-billed curlew! The PSSC is part of the Pacific Flyway Shorebird Survey, a long-term monitoring program for wintering shorebirds led by Point Blue Conservation Science. While the snapshot of data collected this year (shown below in “Key Results”) resulted in fewer Dunlin detections than recent previous years, we are most interested in looking at long-term trends and this data will help us do that at a range-wide scale!
The Puget Sound Shorebird Count, which has been conducted annually since 2012, collects information from over 20 sites, including Samish, Padilla, and Port Susan Bays. Got binoculars and scopes? Love birds? Want to participate in the next count? Contact Gavin Hughes (ghughes@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, as well as abundance trends across our PSSC sites from 2012-2024.
The graphs below summarize last year’s shorebird count results, as well as abundance trends across our PSSC sites from 2012-2024.
The above graph displays the number of dunlin observed relative to the total number of shorebirds observed. Dunlin are consistently the most abundant shorebird surveyed.
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.