Subject: [Tweeters] Fife- Sportco pond Shorebird counts for August
Date: Aug 21 13:17:56 2011
From: Ryan Shaw - rtshaw80 at hotmail.com



Greetings all,

I thought I would give a bit of a data-breakdown of my near-daily census of the Fife-Sportco shorebird ponds for the month of August.? I check the ponds nearly every day due to its proximity to where I work and live, its right on the way to or from!? The ponds have been much higher in water level this year than last, and I was concerned at first if there would be any shorebirds at all due to our unusual amount of rainfall this summer.? Fortunately, shorebirds have found the ponds adequate this year, but not quite as good as last year since by this time last year I had sightings of Solitary Sandipiper, Baird's Sandpiper and Semipalmated Plovers - which so far have been non-existent.? Also interesting this year has been the quite frequent sightings of juvenile Green Herons, I didn't include that data in here but I see them a few times a week, up to two birds.? I'm not too surprised as the breed on the Puyallup River a short flight away, but it is always fun to see them!? The pond is definitely better for peeps at high tide - as I presume they are feeding somewhere in commencement bay during the lower tides.? Doesn't seem to matter what tide for the tringas.

I will continually monitor the ponds on a near-daily basis as long as shorebirds are visiting them, usually around 3:45PM.
Here is the data:? (I do have data for July as well, but it was pretty slow due to the high water levels).

DATE
August (5,6,8,9,10,11,12,14,16,17,18,20,21)

SPECIES
Killdeer (3,0,2,1,0,2,2,1,1,4,1,3,3)
Spotted Sandpiper (2,2,2,2,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0)
Greater Yellowlegs (0,2,3,2,2,2,2,2,4,3,2,2,3)
Lesser Yellowlegs (1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,3,4,5,4,3)
Semipalmated Sandpiper (0,0,0,1,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0)
Western Sandpiper (0,12,19,51,64,16,8,0,24,39,6,1,4)
Least Sandpiper (2,2,8,1,3,2,4,2,6,1,1,3,3)
Pectoral Sandpiper (0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,1,1,1,0,0)
Long-billed Dowitcher (0,3,3,3,3,0,1,0,0,2,1,0,0)

Cheers,

Ryan Shaw
Tacoma
rtshaw80 at hotmail.com