CORDOVA -- While this past winter's snows took a while to get started, the snowfall since January did a good job making up for lost time.
While shorebird flocks were wintering in warmer climates, we had a bird festival of our own for much of the winter with more pine siskens, common redpolls, and even red crossbills at feeders than most could remember. Our local bird seed supplies were exhausted and Alaska Mill and Feed in Anchorage reported selling 10 times their normal amount of bird seed.
By late April, however, the winter flocks of feeder birds have started to disperse and the first migratory shorebirds, black oystercatchers, greater yellowlegs, and Wilson's snipe, have returned.
By now, the mud flats of Hartney Bay and Odiak Slough and other parts of the Copper River Delta will be coming alive with millions of heartbeats. Shorebirds that wintered from as far away as Chile and New Zealand will be heading for breeding grounds in western Alaska and the Arctic. The mud flats of the Copper River Delta are a critical stopping point as these birds make their way north, and the Copper River Delta Shorebird Festival serves to raise awareness of this important habitat and of shorebirds in general.
"To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering," Aldo Leopold once said.
Keeping every cog and wheel is the challenge in shorebird conservation, especially when those cogs and wheels are scattered among other cities, states, and countries. To ensure this mass migration spectacle continues for generations to come, shorebirds need quality wintering grounds, quality breeding grounds, and quality feeding habitat in between, so that shorebirds can complete their epic migrations. At our Shorebird Festival each spring, we attract people to Cordova to highlight those connections, and demonstrate the importance of the Copper River Delta as one of the migratory stop-over sites crucial to shorebird populations.
Migratory birds know nothing of the political boundaries of the countries within the Americas. They move in accordance with rhythms encoded in their genes, sometimes traveling vast distances looking for the forest, grassland, shorelines or other natural landscape that is their home for a portion of the year. If we hope to continue to share our North American communities with familiar avian visitors, we must ensure that they find food, safety, and shelter in all of their seasonal homes and the places in between.
The City of Cordova plays an important role in linking these distant wintering grounds with breeding grounds in Alaska. The mudflats surrounding our city and extending east across the Copper River Delta are a key staging area used by 5 million shorebirds each spring. Our Copper River Delta Shorebird Festival serves to promote awareness of shorebirds and their habitats -- not just locally but nationally and internationally as well. Perhaps more importantly, Cordova has signed agreements with other cities adjacent to key shorebird habitat in Angostura, Mexico and Panama City, Panama, pledging to consider shorebird habitat when planning development. Additionally, our own Prince William Sound Audubon Chapter has sponsored monthly scientific presentations and provided comments on local conservation issues for more than 10 years.
Throughout the Festival weekend there will be many activities, including bird walks, a field trip to Alaganik Slough, a photography workshop, kids activities, and the Birder's Bash dinner. There will even be a friendly birding competition, the Birder's Challenge, both a 24-hour and eight-hour version, for those who want to try to see the greatest number of bird species in the allotted time.
The most popular place to see shorebirds from the Cordova road system is out the Whitshed Road at Hartney Bay. Not as well known but often hosting more diverse shorebird species is Odiak Slough, which can be accessed from behind the AC or behind the High School at the end of South Second Street. Be sure to check the tide tables and head for the mud flats at high tide, when shorebirds are concentrated by rising waters. We have the good fortune of two daylight high tides during the Shorebird Festival, one early in the morning and another late in the evening. An hour before and after high tide provides the best viewing. Although the peak of our shorebird migration is normally around May 7, nature has a way of keeping to its own schedule so the actual peak may occur as much as a week before or afterwards.
Western sandpipers, least sandpipers and dunlin make up the majority of the shorebirds we see each spring but there are others. Careful observers can often pick out semiplamated plovers, black-bellied plovers, and whimbrels. Less commonly, species such as surfbirds, pectoral sandpipers, even the migration champion bar-tailed godwit have been seen on our mud flats. Godwits have been found to fly more than 6,000 miles with a single break on its migration.
I have hosted several of our keynote speakers during their visits over the years. These have been scientists, authors, and photographers that have specialized in shorebirds and have travelled the country, if not the world, following these birds. The reactions of each of them, upon witnessing the huge flocks of birds that appear on our mud flats, has reminded me of how lucky we are to have this natural event right in our backyards.
The preceding article originally appeared in The Cordova Times, and is reprinted here with permission. You can reach Cordova Times Staff with comments and suggestions at cdvtimes(at)thecordovatimes.com