Reflecting on spring migration

Monica Iglecia | July 31, 2018 | Newsletters

Monica Iglecia

Assistant Director, Shorebird Habitat Management

In May 2018, Manomet’s Shorebird Habitat Management Division facilitated exchanges between shorebird regions and conservation practitioners in the Central Flyway through two events. In early May, we hosted a Shorebird Conservation Action Symposium in Cheyenne Bottoms, Kansas, with The Nature Conservancy. In late May, we held a Shorebird Conservation, Management, and Monitoring workshop in southwest Manitoba in collaboration with Nature Conservancy Canada, Bird Studies Canada, Manitoba Important Bird Areas, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and the West Souris River Conservation District.

Cheyenne Bottoms is one of the largest interior marshes in the United States and has been a site of Hemispheric Importance in the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) for 30 years. Of the 52 shorebird species that occur in North America, 37 are found in the Great Plains; half of these species are considered of high conservation concern or worse. Migratory shorebirds passing through the mid-continent are subject to unpredictable weather patterns and a landscape of ephemeral wetlands in which to find their food. Water levels at Cheyenne Bottoms vary on a regular basis, but the basin provides some of the most reliable food resources for shorebirds in the region.

Workshop participants in the field at Cheyenne Bottoms, Kansas. Photo by Brad Winn.

A group of Long-billed Dowitchers and Wilson’s Phalarope forage in a wetland at Cheyenne Bottoms. Photo by Monica Iglecia

A Semipalmated Sandpiper flagged in Peru was seen foraging at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge in Kansas. Photo by Jason Olszak.

Robert Penner presents a commemorative certificate for the 30th anniversary of the Cheyenne Bottoms WHSRN site. Photo by Jason Olszak.

The symposium in Kansas brought together managers of public and private wetlands, employees of the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism, representatives of non-profit organizations, and staff from National Wildlife Refuges in the surrounding states of Nebraska, Missouri, and Oklahoma. The three-day event focused on techniques for managing lands with multiple priorities. Cheyenne Bottoms provided an ideal case study: a diverse matrix of habitat management techniques are needed to weave shorebirds into management plans. At a site where shallow-water dependent shorebirds overlap with shorebirds that rely on drier grasslands, a management plan needs to provide habitats that suit them all. When The Nature Conservancy rotates between mowing, haying, and grazing it helps to maintain short and sparse vegetation preferred by upland shorebirds like Upland Sandpipers, and it helps to reset the prairie landscape, much as the large herds of American Bison and natural fires used to do.

Later in May, our team headed to southwest Manitoba. The Canadian prairie landscape is deceptively rich in biological diversity. Every year, shorebirds rely on this region, many during spring migration, to rest and refuel en route to nesting areas in boreal bogs and Arctic tundra, or during fall migration en route to wintering grounds further south in Mexico and South America. A few species, like Willet, Marbled Godwit, and Wilson’s Phalarope, spend the nesting season on the Manitoba prairies, raising their young among the slow rolling undulations of wetlands, grasslands, and agriculture.

Rather than large congregations of shorebirds like those encountered in coastal estuaries and bays, the prairies provide habitat for groups of shorebirds in lakes and small wetlands scattered across an immense landscape. Each wetland held a diverse grouping of species including, but not limited to, Semipalmated, White-rumped, Pectoral, and Stilt Sandpipers. Grasslands hosted Upland Sandpiper seen standing on fence posts and American Golden Plover resting in freshly tilled agricultural fields.

The workshop in Manitoba marked the start of a citizen science based, collaborative shorebird monitoring effort using the International Shorebird Survey framework. The data collected will contribute to the local understanding of shorebird use of Manitoba’s prairies and the collective understanding of long-term shorebird population trends. These data are collected at sites across North and South America and are a significant resource for informing decision-making at the U.S. and Canadian state/provincial and federal levels.

Through information exchanges and partnership building at important shorebird sites, we can find ways to work together across borders and landscapes to monitor shorebird populations and help improve conditions so shorebirds can thrive.

– Ruddy Turnstones keep an eye out while foraging at Jiggens Bluff, Manitoba. Photo by Monica Iglecia.

American Golden Plovers rest in an agricultural field near Whitewater Lake, Manitoba. Photo by Christian Artuso.

Gillian Richards, Ann McKellar, and Martha Sheldon review shorebird identification and estimation during a workshop field trip in Southwest Manitoba. Photo by Monica Iglecia.

An Upland Sandpiper makes its way through the grass. Photo by Brad Winn.