Shorebird Explosion

Well it’s official: the shorebirds have arrived in Nome, Alaska. We had been seeing a scattering of shorebirds for a few weeks now but on the evenings of May 21st and 22nd they had arrived en-mass.

The water level at the mouth of the Nome River was suddenly much lower than it had previously been, exposing large swaths of mud-flats embedded with tiny invertebrates. A literal buffet of food for many flocks of hungry, newly-arrived migrant shorebirds. Some of these birds had just flown thousands of miles, non-stop, in order to take advantage of the rich bonanza of food that can be found here in the subarctic this time of year.

One species in particular makes a truly impressive migratory flight: the Bar-tailed Godwit.

Bar-tailed Godwits fly non-stop from their wintering grounds in New Zealand an astonishing 11,000-km (or ~6,800-miles) until they reach Alaska. An unfathomable distance. They undertake the longest non-stop flight of any bird in the world, a truly impressive number for a truly impressive bird.

Sifting through the birds as we slowly walked the mudflats, we found two banded individuals. A Red Knot was sporting a numbered federal aluminum band on it’s right leg, but unfortunately the number was unreadable. Another, a Semipalmated Sandpiper had a series of numbered and color bands on both it’s legs. This unique band combination was reporting to the Bird Band Laboratory (BBL), and I should hear in a few weeks where this individual was banded. Reporting the sighting of bird bands to the BBL is crucial to improving our understanding of bird movements and demography.

As the evening sun on the Nome River slowly dwindled towards the horizon, thousands of shorebirds were cast in a remarkable golden light. These birds had once again made the successful spring migration back to their breeding grounds.