Participants in the sixth annual Owens Lake Spring Big Day a few weeks ago witnessed a stunning number of birds on the lake. In all, 114,999 birds were counted on the lake in one day. Not only is that a new high, but that blows away the old high, recorded last April, of approximately 75,000 birds. It was the shorebirds total that really boosted these numbers: 63,524 of 20 different species. American Avocets, Least and Western sandpipers (those are Least Sandpipers on the move above in the photo by Kerry Wilcox) accounted for the majority of shorebirds. We were also interested to note a high of 15,500 Eared Grebes. Sure, results from each year’s count vary for all kinds of reasons – so it’s more important to look at the data over time. But, wow. 

“Owens Lake certainly has national, if not hemispheric, importance once again as a wildlife stopover,” said Mike Prather, count coordinator with Eastern Sierra Audubon Society. “It is Inyo County’s largest wildlife location and has tremendous potential for attracting wildlife viewers in fall and spring each year. Good for all of Inyo County, but especially the southern Owens Valley.”

The Owens Lake Spring Big Day Bird Count is co-organized by Eastern Sierra Audubon and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Each year, a team of about 30 intrepid volunteers and LADWP biologists divide the lake into sections and count every single bird in one day, always the third week of April. These numbers give us a snapshot of how many birds are using Owens Lake during spring migration. The data also help support and inform our efforts in creating a Master Plan for Owens Lake, and Audubon Important Bird Area. (photo of large flock above by Kerry Wilcox)

Volunteers sensed the numbers were going to be big this year. The ponds were teaming with waterbirds and the shallow flood habitat and mudflats were packed with shorebirds. It was a windy morning, not unusual for Owens Valley, but spirits were high.

Recently, the Master Planning Committee met in Bishop for the Owens Lake Master Plan, a process Audubon California initiated with Eastern Sierra Audubon that has grown into a comprehensive planning effort involving many stakeholders with the main goals of saving habitat, saving water, and controlling dust (Learn more about our work there).

Someone at the meeting asked what each groups’ motivation was to continue in this process.  “Because 120,000 birds are on the table!” I responded.

Pete Pumphrey, President for Eastern Sierra Audubon, remarked that one pond took 2.5 hours to survey. While counting, he watched a small section of mud increase from a few shorebirds to thousands. He said the birds had just flown in and landed with their wings prostrate against the ground, utterly exhausted from battling the wind and who-knows-how-long a migratory flight.

Kerry Wilcox, a volunteer for Audubon, recorded huge flights of shorebirds with the Sierra as a backdrop on his camera. If Owens Lake hadn’t been available, where would these birds have stopped to rest and refuel in the Mojave Desert?  Brine flies were in high demand on this day, for sure.

How does this compare to previous years?

In the event’s first year, 2008, 45,000 birds were counted. Since then, numbers have steadily increased but species diversity has decreased. This is not surprising, however, as the habitats that have been created on the lake, as a result of dust control, have matured and become more suitable for some species than others. From 1988 to 1992, PRBO Conservation Science conducted spring and fall shorebirds surveys along the Pacific Flyway. The high spring count for Owens Lake at that time was only 8,500 shorebirds. Although no flyway wide spring counts have been conducted since, if these numbers still serve as a comparison today with other sites, Owens Lake ranks in the top five spring shorebird migration sites in the Pacific Flyway.

Spring Big Day count results, total birds, 2008-2013

Spring Big Day count results, total species, 2008-2013

Owens Lake has once again proven itself to be a critical stopover in the pacific flyway, and it is important that Audubon continues its involvement in the planning process to ensure that this habitat remains available to birds each year as they move between South America and the Arctic.

Many thanks to the volunteer birders who came from all over the state, Mike Prather for coordinating volunteers, and also thanks to Debbie House and her crew of LADWP biologists.

Share on Facebook

Share on Facebook

Like its near-relative Rock Pigeon, the Band-tailed Pigeon is a hardy, adaptable creature. It’s able to live in towns around people, but also quite able to survive in the forests for which it is naturally built. Unlike the Rock Pigeon, the Band-tailed Pigeon is a native species that naturally occurs throughout the Pacific Flyway in a variety of subspecies. Closer to home, we have a resident population in Southern California, but in the spring a number of these birds head north to upper California, Oregon, and Washington to breed. Although there are certainly some who would say that all pigeons look alike, the Band-tailed Pigeon is distinctive for both the white crescent on the back of the neck, and the pail band on its long tail. To get a greater sense of its migratory habits, check out the eBird maps below the fold (photo by Steve Ryan):

As you can see at the end of January, the Band-tailed Pigeons were mostly huddled in California:

Not long after this, we began to see more heading up into Oregon and Washington, until we see this broad distribution today in May:

Share on Facebook

Not since the Wandering Tattler, have we seen a bird moniker so well suited to a member of the Avengers as the Black-crowned Night-heron. But certainly, this heron has much more going for than its cool name. First, it is the world’s most widespread heron, occurring on every continent except Antarctica and Australia. With its combination of black and white, it is a very good-looking bird, although its hunched appearance might make you think it’s standing a little funny. In most of the Pacific Flyway, the Black-crowned Night-heron is a year-round resident. Populations in the extreme north and south of its range will migrate back and forth. That said, one will see a great deal of movement of these birds in California during spring, as local birds shift for breeding, and birds from the south pass through to northern climes. In fact, our friends in Oregon and Washington State don’t see too many Black-crowned Night-herons in the winter, and spring and summer are their chance to see this cool bird. (photo by Dawn Endico)

Share on Facebook

Important legislation requiring the use of non-lead ammunition for hunting today passed the Assembly by a wide margin. Assembly Bill 711, authored by Assemblymembers Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) and Dr. Richard Pan (D-Sacramento), was approved on the Assembly Floor, 44-21. The bill is expected to move next to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water.

“Lead is a toxin that is bad for human health and the environment, and lead ammunition exposes humans and other animals to this life-threatening poison,” said AB 711 author Assemblymember Anthony Rendon (pictured above arguing for his bill on the floor of the Assembly). “There is simply no reason to continue using lead ammunition in hunting, and today’s Assembly vote gives me great hope that we can eradicate this highly toxic element from our environment.”

Eliminating lead ammunition is already a priority for national agencies, and there are affordable, safer alternatives available and in use by some hunters across the country.

“The Centers for Disease Control and leading scientists from around the country agree that there is no safe level of lead exposure for humans,” said Dr. Pan, Chair of the Assembly Health Committee. “As a pediatrician, I am proud to coauthor AB 711 to phase out use of lead ammunition and reduce lead in our environment.”

In addition to posing a danger to human health, lead ammunition still threatens the California Condor, Golden Eagle and other protected species. One in five free-flying condors has ingested such significant levels of lead from these sources that they are at risk of dying from lead poisoning. In addition, more than 130 other wildlife species are at risk of poisoning by spent lead ammunition left behind by hunters.

Nationally-renowned scientists in the field of lead poisoning from across the country released a study in March showing that lead-based ammunition is likely the greatest, largely unregulated, source of lead knowingly discharged into the environment in the United States.

“We are one step closer to getting the lead out of our environment,” said Kimberly Delfino, Defenders of Wildlife California program director. “By passing AB 711, the Assembly has voted to protect Californians and our wildlife from the toxic effects of lead.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1991 began to require the use of non-lead shot like steel and copper for hunting ducks and geese across the United States and the National Park Service in 2009 announced the goal of eliminating the use of lead ammunition.

“This vote shows that the time has come for California to take this simple step to protect birds and other wildlife from this source of lead in the environment,” said Dan Taylor, Audubon California’s director of public policy. “Using lead ammunition just doesn’t make sense given what we now know about the dangers it presents to both birds and people.”

There are already manufacturers of non-lead ammunition in the state of California, and thousands and thousands of hunters in California already use non-lead ammunition for hunting big game in condor country and waterfowl hunting statewide.

“Lead poisoning from ammunition takes an extreme and painful toll on animals, and threatens the integrity of our environment,” said Jennifer Fearing, California senior state director for The Humane Society of the United States. “Thanks to the humane leadership of the California Assembly, California is one step closer to safeguarding its citizens and wildlife from this dangerous toxin.”

The Los Angeles Times, the Sacramento Bee, the San Jose Mercury News and the Monterey County Herald have recently editorialized in favor of AB 711.

Share on Facebook

The Grasshopper Sparrow is a small, inconspicuous bird, known for its buzzy, grasshopper-like song. It spends most of its winter in Mexico, and come up in late April and May to breed. We’re starting to see a great deal more of them right about now. The bird is most noticeable when males perch on top of small shrubs or wildflower stalks in the spring and early summer, singing their high-pitched songs. Grasshopper Sparrows historically have been widespread throughout the United States, but their numbers have dropped dramatically in recent years in the west. Grasshopper Sparrows once thrived in the extensive native grasslands of California, but unfortunately they are increasingly rare, and are now listed as a California Species of Special Concern. The biggest reason for the decline of the Grasshopper Sparrow is loss of native grassland habitat. Agricultural and urban developments have reduced grasslands in California, and many of the remaining grassland patches are too small and dispersed for the birds, or no longer have suitable habitat structure for Grasshopper Sparrows. Conversion of native grasslands to other crops or European annual grasses, early-summer mowing, and intensive grazing have all reduced the amount of good habitat for this species. Check out the maps below the fold to see the progress of their migration into the United States this spring (photo by Greg Smith):

At the end of March, we were just starting to see Grasshopper Sparrows appear in its breeding range. As you can see, the larger number of birds were accumulating in the eastern United States:

In this map from yesterday, you can see the birds appearing is vastly greater numbers. And, of course, you can see the exploding population in the east:

Share on Facebook

In case you haven’t noticed, the migration of seabirds is often wildly different from other kinds of birds. But, like their land-based counterparts, seabird do move around quite a bit this time of year – sometimes for breeding, sometimes in search of food. A case in point is the Tufted Puffin. While a lot of people like to think of puffins as cute (seeming perfectly built for one of those Facebook memes with words reading “I Can Haz Seabird,” the Tufted Puffin actually has a reputation for being quite tough. It breeds over a wide range and can handle wildly different climates with relative ease. During the non-breeding season, the Tufted Puffin ranges far and wide over the northern Pacific Ocean, from the waters of Japan to California, from the icy waters of Alaska to the subtropics off Baja. In the spring, in a migration that is very much unlike what one would see from a land bird, the Tufted Puffin begins settling on one of several breeding sites up and down the Western Coast of North America. Here in California, we have breeding sites in Southern California, on the Farallon Islands off San Francisco, and the far north coast. Breeding sites continue to occur up through the Pacific Northwest, Canada, Alaska and Russia’s Chukchi Peninsula. This all started happening earlier in the spring, but some of the birds may still be settling into their northern breeding territories. Tufted puffins are a species of special concern in California, the southern periphery of their breeding range. They are declining at all colonies monitored in the West Coast states with the exception of the Farallon Islands off California. They feed on rockfish, squid and anchovies.

Share on Facebook

The Los Angeles Times’ Editorial Board weighs in today in support of Assembly Bill 711, which will require nonlead ammunition for all hunting in California. Audubon California is co-sponsoring this legislation with the Humane Society of the United States and Defenders of Wildlife. Here’s an excerpt:

… this is not a measure aimed at curbing the sport of hunting. It would protect animals and people — including those people who hunt and eat their kill — by lessening their exposure to lead.

With its support, the Times joins the San Jose Mercury News, the Monterey Herald, and the Sacramento Bee, which have all supported the bill.

Share on Facebook

The Wilson’s Phalarope is a true transequatorial migrant, wintering way down in southern South American and breeding up here in the Pacific Flyway. It can be found on our shorelines, as well as our salty interior lakes (for instance, Mono Lake). Check out the eBird map below the fold to see sightings in May (photo by Chuq von Rospach):

Share on Facebook

Our bill to require nonlead ammunition for hunting in California goes before the State Assembly this week. Let your leaders know that you want a YES vote on Assembly Bill 711. For more information about the legislation, visit our website.

Share on Facebook

Our bill to get lead out of the environment is going before the California State Assembly this week. Help the birds get the word out by sending an email to your legislator right now. It’s easy.

Share on Facebook

The Vermillion Flycatcher is really something to see. Bright in color, it stands out among all the flycatcher, for sure. It spends it winters from Mexico down to South America, and many come up in the spring to southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Up here, it tends to like the warm, dry habitats — but it will turn up in grassland and oak woodlands. During breeding season, the male Vermilion Flycatchers are known for a wild singing performance, bouncing through the sky. Check out the map below to see where they were as of the end of April (photo by Jamie Chavez):

Share on Facebook

The Willow Flycatcher is a commonly sighted migratory bird throughout North America, enjoying wet shrubby habitat from Maine to Southern California. They winter from southern Mexico to northern South America, and tend to come north in early May. We’re starting to get reports now in California. If you want to see how they enter the United States, you can see it clearly in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology GIF below:

As far as where we are now, check out the eBird map below showing sightings so far this month. Note how the birds show up first in California and the Pacific Flyway:

Share on Facebook

Up until last week a very cold spring gripped Interior Alaska, slowing migration by several weeks. May 6 the weather finally changed and a flood of birds that had been waiting streamed north. This Peregrine Falcon was one, seen at Creamer’s Field State Waterfowl Refuge, an Important Bird Area of statewide significance. Read more about the 1000s of birds passing through.

(Photo by Beth Peluso)

Share on Facebook

The Purple Martin is yet another great sign of spring. These have been turning up on the West Coast since March, but are just about peaking right now. They come from as far away as Brazil– more than 5,000 miles. The Purple Martin, the largest of the swallows on our continent, is one of America’s favorite birds. But while the Purple Martin is common and widespread in the east, it is relatively rare and sparsely distributed in the west. Historical declines and the small population size led the California Department of Fish and Game to designate the Purple Martin a Species of Special Concern. The bird’s unique relationship with people is illustrated by the fact that in the east, the bird nests almost exclusively in man-made boxes. In California, however, Purple Martins nest mainly in natural cavities in trees (the notable exception being the population in the Sacramento area, which uses holes in highway overpasses.). Another interesting fact about the Purple Martin is that they tend to rapidly knock down any mosquito problem you might have. Below the fold, we’ve got an eBird map from the end of April, which shows their distribution along the Western United States. (photo by K. Schneider)

Share on Facebook