Many of you are interested in Lake Abert in Lake county. Steve Dougill
heads up survey work there. For the bird numbers, see a post to COBOL by
Courtney Jett who accompanied Steve on the survey, posted by her at
22:14 pm on COBOL yesterday. Judy, jmeredit@xxxxxxxxxxx
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [COBOL] Lake Abert
Date: 07-09-2016 07:11
From: steve dougill <birdidiot@xxxxxxxxx>
To: cobol <cobol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I just wanted to add a couple of things to Courtney's posting about lake
Abert as sometimes the numbers are lost in an extensive bird list.
Lake conditions are the best its been for a couple of years. There are
lake flies that the shorebirds are scooping up and clearly there are
aquatic invertebrates the Avocets and Phalaropes are gorging on. It is
likely that we will see numbers starting to build dramatically over the
coming weeks ... maybe not to the levels where we have counted 250K
Phalaropes in the past but who knows. Even with the 17,000 Wilson
Phalaropes we counted at such an early part of the season, its a thrill
to see the dense swarms and as numbers build it really is one of the
premier birding spectacles in the West set in such dramatic scenery.
Don't for one moment think that the lake's water issues are only tied to
inevitable climate change. Its much more nuanced with an un-permitted
dam, and conservation / wildlife improvement strategies competing
against each other. There is an ongoing project to document the bird
numbers at Lake Abert and publish these along with water flow models
to form a base line for discussions and management. If you have a
scope and would like to count small dots for a few hours in probably one
of the most beautiful and wild areas of Oregon please contact me. I
need volunteers through July and August.
Apart from the shorebirds (several thousand peeps ... mostly adult
Western but we also found 3 adult semi P Sandpipers and Leasts ... a few
young turning up now) we did find a few other nice local birds
including quite a number of Black-throated Sparrows and lark Sparrows
still singing (at least in the early morning). We watched a pair of
Golden Eagles with a first year bird cut through the strong wind and
hang over a rocky crag for a bit ... Several Prairie Falcons, chuckars
chucking, and poorwils calling ....
Steve Dougill
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