Shorebird festival! No other phrase so quickens the heart of a birder. The first week of May each year, hundreds of thousands of shorebirds migrate up the Pacific coast through Washington. Some come from as far south as Argentina and fly as far north as the tundra fields of Alaska, a distance of over 9,000 miles (14,000 km) each way.
Birders flock wherever birds do, so each May, birders descend on Grays Harbor for the shorebird festival. Grays Harbor is home to some of Washington’s most spectacular mudflats. At low tide, the water recedes to expose mudflats some five miles (8 km) in extent. The shorebirds congregate in flocks thousands strong, and so do the birders.
Birders are mainly a terrestrial species, which limits their powers of observation when it comes to shorebirds. The famous shorebird observatories at Bottle Beach and Bowerman Basin can be frustrating places to bird, with birders squinting through spotting scopes at birds the size of sparrows foraging miles away on the mudflats.
I figured I could do better in a kayak. At high tide, most of the shorebirds retreat to Sand Island in the middle of Grays Harbor, one of the few places on the mudflats that remains above the waterline. I could paddle out in advance of high tide and stage myself onshore. The birds would come to me. I could have my own, one-man shorebird festival.
Route map. I originally planned to paddle out on the midnight high tide and stage on Sand Island overnight, but the wind was so strong I lost my nerve and decided to do it on the afternoon tide as a day trip.
Rarest and most precious of the migratory shorebird species is the red knot. The red knot is a large, rufous shorebird. The west coast subspecies, roselaari, has an estimated global population of just 17,000 individuals, although the true number is not known with precision due to the difficulty of studying this bird. During the spring migration, the roselaari red knots use only a handful of stopover locations: Grays Harbor and Willapa Bay in Washington, the Fraser River delta in BC, and the Copper River delta in Alaska. Virtually the entire population passes through these few spots. Each individual bird lingers only for a couple days before moving on.
I was not the only one to hit upon the idea of looking for red knots by boat. At the Quinault Marina, I encountered a team of wildlife researchers launching fan-powered airboats to take them across the shallow bay to Sand Island. They planned to install cannon- and rocket-fired net guns at the top of the mudflats. When the rising tide forced the red knots in range, boom, the nets would fire and the researchers could attach leg bands to the captured red knots. Science!
I wasn’t thrilled to learn about this plan. Red knots flock with other species of shorebird. It seemed likely that cannon-nets and rocket-nets would capture dozens or even hundreds of non-target birds for every red knot they captured. The shorebirds in Grays Harbor have flown thousands of miles and have thousands more to go. They are exhausted and need to rest. They don’t need to be shot at with cannons and rockets.
The cannons and rockets were not even the most outrageous part of the researchers’ plan, but I wouldn’t learn about the rest until we were all on the island.
Shorebird festival! This is going to be great!
Fanboat launch, Quinault Marina. The shallow draft allows the researchers to move about the bay even during lower tides.
Paddling to Sand Island, Grays Harbor. Even in the sheltered bay behind Damon Point, I faced currents up to two knots.
Harbor seals off Sand Island. The seals were hauled out on a sandbar that reached almost but not quite to the water’s surface, creating the illusion that the seals were sleeping in the water.
View of Sand Island. Much of the island is awash during the highest tides, but there are a few grassy areas that remain above water, except during winter storms.
When I first arrived, there were only a handful of shorebirds on Sand Island. The island was mostly occupied by gulls of various species. The wildlife researchers in their fanboats had beaten me to the island, and they told me not to despair. At high tide, thousands of shorebirds would leave the mudflats and come to Sand Island to roost.
The researchers warned me repeatedly not to approach their cannon-nets and rocket-nets. They didn’t want me getting hurt, and they also didn’t want me scaring the birds away from the weapons. No worries on that front; I didn’t want anything to do with the netting operation. The researchers took over the best spots on Sand Island west, so I went to Sand Island east. With a channel of water separating us, I expected not to see the researchers for the rest of the day.
No sooner did I get myself set up on the beach than the fanboats swung over from Sand Island west and deposited additional researchers on Sand Island east. Only later did I discover what they were up to.
Western gull, Sand Island. I suspect western gulls nest on the island, but they do not start their clutches until early June, so I was not at risk of disturbing them.
Ring-billed gulls, Sand Island. This is one of our most graceful species of gull.
Alex birding on Sand Island. I had originally planned to use a tent for a blind, but the birds didn’t mind my sitting out in the open, so long as I didn’t stand up too abruptly.
After an hour or two, the tide rose high enough to drive the shorebirds onto Sand Island. Flock by flock they came, a dozen species strong. Western sandpipers and dunlin made up the bulk of the population, with large numbers of semipalmated and black-bellied plovers also present. Dowitchers and ruddy turnstones were distinct in their bright plumages. Whimbrels and marbled godwits, two of our largest shorebird species, towered above the crowd.
Best of all were the red knots. As the name implies, they are a bright, spanking red. Between their bright plumage and their size—nearly twice that of the dunlin and westerns—they stuck out even from a distance.
I almost never get to see red knots. Most shorebird species can be found in any number of places along the coast or even on the inland waters. Red knots, however, can only be found in Grays Harbor or Willapa Bay, and only for a couple weeks in May. They do not visit other sites, and they do not visit during other times of the year. Their southbound migration in the fall follows a different route, so May is the only time to see them.
Dunlin and western sandpipers, Sand Island. Dunlin with the black bellies, westerns with the white.
Western sandpipers and dunlin, Sand Island. The westerns can run so fast their legs become a blur of motion.
Greater yellowlegs, Sand Island. This individual is probably a migrant, but some few yellowlegs do remain in Washington year-round.
Semipalmated plover, Sand Island. This is one of the least shy, most approachable shorebird species.
Shorebird flock in flight. Several distinct flocks were present on Sand Island, each several thousand birds strong.
Marbled godwit and whimbrel, Sand Island. Godwit with the upturned bill, whimbrel with the downcurved bill.
Short-billed dowitcher and black-bellied plover, Sand Island. Only a few dozen dowitchers were present today.
Ruddy turnstone, black-belled plover, and dunlin, Sand Island. The black mask of the turnstone is one of the handsomest shorebird plumages.
Red knots and dunlin, Sand Island. Some eighty or so red knots were on the island today.
Red knots, dunlin, and western sandpipers in flight. The different species welcome one another’s company.
Now that the birds had arrived, the researchers sprang their ambush. The red knots had not wandered into range of the cannon-nets and rocket-nets, and the researchers were unwilling to wait. The fanboats charged the beach, flushing thousands of shorebirds into flight. Researchers stationed on shore ran toward any birds that alighted, scaring them back into the air. Every time a flock landed in the “wrong place,” a fanboat or shore team member would hurry over to harass them. The pursuit went on for an hour.
I don’t normally accost wrongdoers in the outdoors. I’m not a policeman, and I've committed my own share of inadvertent violations over the years. This business with the hazing was too much to tolerate. The birds are only present in Grays Harbor for a day or two, and they can only afford to rest from their foraging for a few hours each day. Even an hour of hazing deprives them of a substantial portion of their recovery time. I angrily confronted one of the researchers on shore. She justified herself by the supposed importance of the research, but I let her know that I was not impressed.
Fanboat hazing shorebirds, Sand Island. Facing two fanboats and half a dozen chasers on shore, the birds didn’t stand a chance.
Fanboat pursues dunlin. Thanks to the boats’ shallow draft, the shorebirds had nowhere to hide. “Science, bitch!”
A fanboat coordinates pursuit with a hazer on shore. Seeing something like this, you wish the net-cannons would shoot them instead of the birds.
Once all the birds had been driven off Sand Island east, there wasn’t much point in my sticking around. I paddled back across Grays Harbor, enjoying the company of a few gray whales along the way.
When I got back to my car, the lead researcher had left a note on my windshield, apologizing for “ruining” my day with the shorebirds and asking me to call him, which I did. He explained the importance of his research and reassured me the team was not acting out of malice toward birds—a red herring, as no one could doubt either of those propositions. Cutting to the heart of the matter, he told me the chasing was a “last ditch effort” to obtain birds for banding. Normally, the banders don’t resort to that tactic. They just wait for the birds to wander in range of the cannon-nets and rocket-nets.
This claim is not very credible. The researchers had pre-positioned the onshore hazers and fanboats before the birds even arrived. They knew there was a substantial likelihood they would decide to chase the birds. Chasing may not be their first choice, but it is hardly a “last ditch” tactic. It is a routine part of their program.
The lead researcher told me they were done chasing for the day and would now passively observe the banded birds. However, another round of banding was scheduled for the following week and would extend over several more days. Would this new banding effort involve chasing? The lead researcher was cagey on this point but ultimately admitted that it might.
He defended chasing on the grounds that it only persists for an hour at a time, although he left it unclear what happens after an hour if the birds are still not within range of the net guns. He also said the survival rate for banded red knots was high, which he saw as evidence that the chasing doesn’t have any substantial effect on their wellbeing.
These justifications are flimsy. Even if red knots do not die from the chasing, the chasing also affects every other shorebird species on the island. I saw fanboats chasing flocks that did not contain a single red knot. For every red knot banded, hundreds of other birds are harassed. The mortality of these “bycatch” species cannot be assessed, because they are not tracked.
Nor is mortality the only measure of impact. If chasing deprives the birds of energy and thereby lowers their reproductive success, it will still lead to population decline even if it never kills a single bird.
The lead researcher told me that he also did not like chasing. He promised to try to think of “more passive” ways of driving the birds into his cannon-nets and rocket-nets. In the interest of hitting singles rather than home runs, I told him I hoped he could come up with a better tactic.
Paddling toward Damon Point, Grays Harbor. The interplay of swells and currents makes Grays Harbor a challenging place to kayak.
Gray whale fluke, Grays Harbor. The muddy bottom makes a perfect foraging ground for gray whales.
In truth, the researchers did not “ruin” my day. If anything, their bad behavior only introduced me to a new field of play. I’ve requested from the U.S. Geological Survey a copy of their banding permit. If chasing birds exceeds the boundaries of their permit, or if their permit exceeds the boundaries of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, then these researchers may need to be reined in as a matter of law.
Even if they turn out to be in compliance with their permit and the law, I may find some leverage through the Office of Science Quality and Integrity to restrain them from such egregious tactics. It cannot be the case that harassing thousands of exhausted shorebirds, hardly any of which are members of the target species, is the only way to conduct wildlife research. It might even be the case that we don’t need to shoot cannons and rockets at birds in the first place.
—Alex Sidles