Subject: Red Knots
Date: May 12 09:35:16 1998
From: CHRIS CHAPPELL - cbmm490 at gwgate.wadnr.gov


Anyone count or estimate Red Knot numbers at any sites in
Grays Harbor or Willapa Bay on weekend of May 9-10? If so
please let me know. Particularly interested in Bowerman
Basin, as its a known hot spot that I didn't get to.

Spent last Sunday May10 counting knots and other
shorebirds at some of their favorite staging areas in Grays
Harbor and Willapa Bay. Based on past years reports this
should be around the peak of knot migration. The results
were not encouraging I'm sorry to report, 380 at Bottle
Beach, 750 at Tokeland, 40 at North River, 310 at II Slough
mouth of Willapa River. The Tokeland count is the only one
that is comparable to counts that I made during the early and
mid 80's. The tides were just right for counts at each site.

Of course its hard to make definitive conclusions based on
one day in the field, these birds are quite mobile... and its
the El Nino of the century so who knows whats going on.
1983 was the El Nino of the previous 50 years (at that time)
and I and others counted about 3-4 times as many knots at
the same north Willapa sites that year as this year. Perhaps
this is just natural variation in the population...

We still don't know where Washington knots spend the
winter. Time for some intensive work on tracking the
migration of this enigmatic species. Our
population/subspecies of knot is the least studied of the 5
worldwide subspecies. According to the literature this
subspecies breeds on Wrangell Island, north of Siberia, and
to lesser degree in northwestern Alaska. Other than that
we're pretty clueless as to its migratory routes.

The II Slough site, formerly the hot spot for knots in Willapa
with up to about 3000 birds regular, has undergone a
dramatic transformation over the last 15 years. The high
mudflat, on which the birds formerly congregated and fed
when most of the rest of the mud was covered (analagous to
Bowerman Basin situation in Grays Harbor), is now a
continuous Spartina meadow that stretches for many miles
east-west and hundreds of yards north-south. There's
nothing left in terms of foraging habitat when the tide is
nearly high.

Chris Chappell
Olympia, WA
chris.chappell at wadnr.gov