Bird Board
248 St fields amost dry, but still some birds
Posted by Toe
about 7 years ago
3 Comments
Stopped in the afternoon to see if anything new turned up, and added a Western Sandpiper bringing my total for that spot to 18 shorebird species. With the spotted Sandpiper I saw at Black Pt. the day before, that's a decent number considering we have no dedicated shorebird habitat. This proves that if you build it they will come. How difficult is it to take some dirt, and add some water? That's pretty much all you need. By tomorrow the only field that will have any water is the one adjacent to 107 ave where the Avocets were at. I got a couple more decent photos this time.
Comments
There's a really interesting piece on ebird.org about creating "pop-up" wetlands as part of a dynamic conservation model. The basic idea is rent critical habitat for shorebirds during migration and there are examples that show how this can and does work. I thought it sounds awesome and yet something I cannot see any local conservation group ( our local Audubon in particular) taking any interest in the matter.
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/ebird-science-prioritizing-dynamic-conservation-for-migratory-birds/
I'm interested, Shane, and I'm sure that others at TAS would also be interested in learning more about this innovative idea. Since this is a Nature Conservancy project, I'd like to ask our local Nature Conservancy rep if he could look into the feasibility of such an approach here in Miami-Dade.
A similar idea is catching on in NW North Carolina, not for wetlands but for small hay fields. Conservation groups are paying farmers to delay harvest so that grassland birds such as Bobolinks, sparrows and blackbirds can fledge their young. The compensation helps because the farmer loses profit as the hay matures past harvest. I guess the key is to have a strong conservation organization take the first steps.
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