KENEDY COUNTY – WIND TURBINES
CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT
4 January 2012
The 2nd running of this CBC produced 1/3 of the waterbirds and about the same number of species as the previous year. The Best Birds of the count were LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL and JAEGER. The two years were one of contrast in the upper Laguna Madre. The 2011 survey occurred after major freshening of Laguna by a hurricane during 2010, and the 2012 survey occurred after the driest year in Texas history. Both winters were much drier than normal. Interacting with all of this hydrology was an 80 day fall red tide along the national seashore that killed millions of fish and depleted food resources for many birds.
This CBC covers one of the most important waterbird areas in Texas and is unique for the State because of the long distance needed to travel to the survey area: 18 miles down the beach from the nearest road, or 25 miles by boat from the nearest dock. We had 2 hardy crews camp on the beach at the count circle edge the night before to get an early start. While the rest of us, departed at daybreak for safety reasons.
Land based crews drove the beach and scoped from on top of dunes, drove extensive grasslands between the dunes and the wind tidal flats, and 1 crew walked the flats.
Water based crews dropped off 3 teams to walk the very shallow flats, and then the two boats surveyed waterbirds from deeper water.
RESULTS
We counted 105,000 birds from 100 species. We reported 350,000 birds from 101 species in 2011. Major decreases in Am. Coot 21,000 to 0, puddle ducks from 75,000 to 8,000, diving ducks 15,000 to 4,000, and shorebirds 238,000 to 92,000 were noted. Some of the differences in bird abundance might be related to salinities between the surveys. It was 20 ppt in 2011 and 46 ppt in 2012. More surveys will be needed to determine if this is the driving factor for the area.
Sanderling, turnstone, gull and tern numbers were essentially the same between years even though the beach crew noted scarcity of birds on the beaches. Many of these “beach” birds have the option to forage over the flats when conditions are harsh on the beach.
Photo by Cullen Hanks
Passerine numbers between years were very similar, and fish eating birds were somewhat higher. Even with the drop in overall abundance from last year, the numbers from this survey for Reddish Egret, Black-bellied Plover, Snowy Plover, Willet, Western Sandpiper, Least Sandpiper, and Dunlin will likely be some of the highest in the Nation.
As the sun set we were treated by views of massive flocks of waterfowl outside of our count circle and a coyote who claimed to rule the dunes.
This Christmas Bird Count is an important survey of the birds using the Texas Coast and requires extensive efforts to complete. The count is a cooperative effort between the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. National Park Service, and our volunteers. We will likely be conducting our next CBC at this site on Thursday, 3 January 2013.
Brent Ortego
Wade Stablein
Wade_stablein@nps.gov
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