Subject: [Tweeters] Shorebird Nurseries
Date: Jul 14 10:07:53 2011
From: jeff gibson - gibsondesign at msn.com



When you go to buy plants in your local puget sound retail nursery, did you know that some local growers of those plants are also growing shorebirds?

It's true. As a garden perfessional, I frequent various wholesale nurseries, mainly down around Woodinville ect. These are basically big open spaces, 10 acres or so, with various hoop houses with plants, but also with open ground covered with weed-barrier cloth, which is covered in season with thousands of plants in black plastic pots. Drainage ditches and irrigation ponds are also part of the habitat matrix, as well as sprinkler systems.

Growing shorebirds is certainly not intentional in these places, but two birds seem to do quite well in this "habitat" - Killdeer and Spotted Sandpiper. Killdeer is not that big of a surprise to me, as they are adapted pretty well to farm civilization. Last week in a nursery atop a forested ridge in burbs south of Woodinville, I found the place awash in Killdeers - many 3/4 grown young included. Again I saw more at another nursery down in the nearby floodplain of the Sammamish River.

A little more surprising to me is finding Spotted Sandpipers in these places, even though I've been seeing them for years there. I think of
Spotties as being a bit more needing of "wildness" in their habitat needs, but here they are, noisily flying about in their unique way.
Back in the early 80's I worked on a breeding bird study at 10'000 feet in the Sierra Nevada near Tioga Pass. This was at timberline at that latitude, and on my 40 acre plot there were two pairs of Spotted Sandpipers nesting near a beautiful subalpine tarn. I guess you could say that this is a very adaptive species !

It is interesting seeing both birds lurking in and out of the fields of black plastic pot's. There are trucks cruising the dirt roadways and the "fields "are usually fairly active with workers and buyers walking around, but the shorebirds have learned to deal with it. How healthy these birds are is another question, as these places tend to spray alot of pesticide/herbicide around - but they are fledging young nonetheless.

Jeff Gibson, Everett Wa