Red Knot Rendezvous
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SourDough News | August 13, 2015
Wildlife biologist Melissa Gabrielson carries her spotting scope among the shorebirds, preparing to count for a while.
Photo courtesy of Mike Ausman, USFS.
Wildlife Technician Dan Jenkins peers through a spotting scope on Little Egg Island, observing Red Knots and other shorebirds.
Photo courtesy of Melissa Gabrielson, USFS.
Red Knots (the birds with the rust colored breast) intermingle with dunlins, as seen through the spotting scope. If you look closely, you can see the yellow band on Red Knot 701 in the center of the photo.
Photo courtesy of Melissa Gabrielson, USFS.
The number is 701. Number of birds we’ve seen today, you ask? No, but good guess. Number of cookies the field crew has eaten since arriving on Little Egg Island for ten days of shorebird surveys? Closer, but not quite. Number of times you’ve thought about your next snack break today? Okay, maybe that’s just me… 701 is in fact the number on a leg band of a Red Knot, a medium-sized shorebird, that was observed on Little Egg Island in 2014.
Red Knots are of special interest to the Forest Service because the population of the subspecies that occurs in Alaska (Calidris canutus roselarri) has been declining worldwide. Their total numbers are estimated to be around 20,000, which seems like a lot until we look at historical statistics from the Cordova Ranger District on the Chugach National Forest.
In the 1970s, for example, several Forest Service employees observed a large flock of approximately 40,000 Red Knots on the Copper River Delta. An international effort is in place to unveil some of the mysteries surrounding the decline of this species and to track the remaining populations.
When wildlife biologist Melissa Gabrielson entered 701 into bandedbird.org, she was able to track the Red Knot back to 2009, when it was banded in Guerrero Negro, Baja California Sur.
What was Red Knot 701 doing all the way up here? It turns out that these snowbirds spend the winter down in sunny California and Central America. When spring hits, they’re winging northward to their breeding grounds in northwestern Alaska.
As we know very well here in Cordova, the Copper River Delta is a prime stopover spot for shorebirds of all shapes and sizes. However, large congregations of Red Knots hang out, year after year, on several of the barrier islands close to Cordova, Little Egg Island included. In early May, shorebirds arrive, offering a narrow window of time each year for biologists to survey Red Knots. For the past two years, USFS International Programs has funded biologists and technicians of the US Forest Service to travel to Little Egg Island during the migration, recording data on shorebirds with a special emphasis on Red Knots.
What does the surveying entail? During the ten days on Little Egg Island, two biologists document Red Knot numbers, behavior, arrival times, departures, flagged individuals, and radio transmissions. They estimate the numbers of total shorebirds that stop over on the island; the species composition of the flocks; estimate the total number of Red Knots within the flocks; and resight any banded/flagged individual. An effort to detect radio transmitters is also completed to aid research being conducted by the Prince William Sound Science Center.
This year, the Red Knot survey ran from May 4 -13. Surveys are conducted around high tide, because the birds’ schedule and behavior changes with the availability of their feeding grounds. At high tide, the areas where shorebirds feed is underwater, so they use that time to roost, making it much easier to count and observe birds.
The highest total shorebird count that Gabrielson and Wildlife Technician Dan Jenkins observed was 6,100. The highest daily Red Knot count was a little over 1,900. This number was a bit lower than last year but inclement weather proved to be a challenge not only for the field crew but for the birds as well. The Red Knots intermingled with western sandpipers, black bellied plovers, ruddy turnstones, dunlin, whimbrels, and others. The highest total count for all species of birds in one day was 4,400. Gabrielson and Jenkins observed two Red Knots with leg bands and detected radio transmissions on four of the birds this time around.
Before the two knew it, their time on the island was over. The swarms of birds that visited them on the island started dwindling, and the migration event moved up the flyway as the birds continued their journey northward. Hope to see you next May, 701!
By Danielle Rupp, AmeriCorps Natural Resources Outreach Specialist, USFS.