Willowmoor Bird Survey - Fall 2020 Report
By Jeremy Lucas
Jeremy Lucas, Conservation Chair of Eastside Audubon
This is the first of what I hope to be many updates to the Willowmoor Bird Survey project undertaken by Eastside Audubon. For background, Eastside Audubon has been planning on conducting a bird survey in an area of Marymoor Park known as the Willowmoor Floodplain (see below map) since early 2019. This particular area is adjacent to a stretch of the Sammamish River known as the Transition Zone. Eastside Audubon is especially interested in this area as the county is proposing to conduct a restoration and flood control project there. Our goal is to understand which birds use this area at various times of the year. Though relatively small, the types of micro-habitats here are diverse. Wetlands, wooded areas, riparian, and large patches of blackberry can all be found here.
Our survey protocol is simple. We have divided the year into four survey windows in order to capture snapshots of how birds use the area seasonally. Each survey window will have three survey days. For example, our Fall 2020 survey window had September 12, 19, and October 3 as the survey days. Each day, seven observation circles would have a volunteer posted and that volunteer would count every bird detected for 10 minutes.
The top five most abundant birds according to our count were American Crow, Mallard, Song Sparrow, American Robin, and Black-capped Chickadee. This is based on the total count across the survey area. The numbers do change as you look at individual survey points. For example, Mallard is seen more at the survey points closest to the Sammamish River. Some of the exciting birds that got our volunteers talking were one sighting of an Osprey as well as a Fox Sparrow.
We have partnered with Cindy Easterson of the Puget Sound Bird Observatory to design this study and to provide training. Without her hard work and dedication to this project, none of this would have been possible. We have also had a large, and growing, list of volunteers that attended trainings late at night during the weekdays and gave up a Saturday morning or two or three to help us gather these data. We had a total of 28 volunteers that donated a combined total of 56 hours! Without them, this would not have been possible. Thank you to everyone that has joined us on this project!
Looking forward to scheduling our next survey window for Winter!
Photo of Fox Sparrow credit by Mick Thompson