American Avocet Photo by Joel Trick

Another seasonal summary of the totals of many species observed and tallied by our technician at the Waterbird Watch is here. The technician was on duty six hours per day, six days per week, from March 1 to May 21 in the spring season. 

In addition to the "Top Ten" listed below, other noteworthy sightings included 54 American Avocets, Whimbrel and Marbled Godwit, 8 Red-necked Grebes, 1 Western Grebe, and 341 Red-throated Loons.  Note that the numbers of Red-breasted Mergansers and Double-crested Cormorants were lower than in many previous seasons. The advantage of datasets collected over a long time period allows us to see trends in the data. 

2019 Spring Waterbird Watch Top Ten                                     
Bonaparte's Gull - 42,962                                                         
Red-breasted Merganser – 28,735                                                         
Herring Gull - 14,020                                                  
Common Tern - 11, 592                                               
Greater Scaup – 10,657                                                
Ring-billed Gull - 10,337                                                         
Double-crested Cormorant - 9,748                                                        
Long-tailed Duck – 5,765                                                        
Lesser Scaup - 5,526                                                    
Mallard - 5,085                                               
                                                           
Total for all species – 175,954                                                  
                                                           
Highlights for the final week of the Spring Watch:                                                      
Little Gull, California Gull, Neotropic Cormorant