Shorebird Survey

Every two weeks, we conduct a very important survey.  It is the Shorebird Survey.  The purpose of this study is to detect any negative effects that the ant baiting may have on the wildlife on Johnston.  We use a poison on the ants and we only want it to go to the ants.  We don’t want to hurt any other animal.  The poison is designed to be safe for marine and bird species.  But we want to be sure.  Especially because birds eat bugs.  We look for drops in population or increases in sick looking birds.  This survey is considered a priority and must be completed every two weeks.  This survey was started in 1991.  That is a lot of data.  Every two weeks for the past 13 years!

We start the survey at 8am on the dot with our binoculars around our necks.  We start on the East side of the island so the sun is to our backs.  There are 4 routes we walk: North Shore (Kyle), Refuge Road (Steve), Runway (Me), and South Shore (Colin).  Katrina likes to hop around.  She walked with me twice and once with Steve…who will she walk with next?  We look for certain species of birds: Cattle Egret, Pacific Golden Plover, Short Eared Owl, Bristle Thighed Curlew, Ruddy Turnstone, Sanderling, and the Wandering Tattler.  This is a Bristle Thighed Curlew.  They have a long curved beak.  They are the only ones who have that so they are easy to spot.

The island is a half a mile wide and has trees.  I cannot see anybody else when I walk the runway.  We use radios to talk to each other.  We communicate go time and we start the survey.  If we walk and scare a bird and he flies forward, there is a chance I will see him again as we continue.  I don’t want to count him twice.  That’s why we only count birds that have passed us.  And why we use the radios.  We walk in a straight line together.  If we didn’t, Colin could be ahead of me and make a bird fly behind him, he counts it, and then in flies in my zone, then I count him.  This would be bad.

To prevent it, we use the grid system on the island.  The whole island is flagged at every 50 meters.  They are also numbered and lettered. The letters run parallel to the runway and that is the way we walk…parallel to the runway.  So all of our letters on our flags stay the same.  For me, on the runway, my letter is K.  The numbers change as you go East to West.  As I walk I pass flags that say, 58K, 57K, 56K.  All the way to 1K.  We use these numbers to help us stay together.  We call out on the fives.  So when I get to 45K, I radio to everyone that I have reached 45 and I wait there until everyone else calls in on the 45 line.  We do the same thing when we get to 40 and 35 and 30 until we get to the end.  How do we know it’s the end?  We get wet.  We go until we can’t go no mo.  Here is a Cattle Egret standing on the runway just asking to get counted.

Sometimes we don’t always see the bird, we hear them.  Especially the Curlews.  They have a very unique call.  It is high pitched and sounds like a wolf call.  You know?  Like when a pervert sees a pretty girl on the street and whistles at her.  That’s the Bristle Thighed Curlew. He’s our resident perv.  If we hear the bird we can mark it down in our notebooks.  We do this survey slow.  It takes us about an hour and fifteen minutes to walk from the East side to the West side of the island.  Don’t worry.  We have not seen a decline in bird populations and every one that I have seen has been looking super healthy!