Over the past two mornings we covered two areas teaming with Snowy Plovers on Hubbard Creek Lake in Stephens County. The sheer amount of Snowy Plover habitat is incredible. We barely scratched the surface and by our best estimate came up with about 180-190 birds that we actually saw. We had no time to investigate identical habitats elsewhere. We inspected ~100 birds that were within binocular range for color tags but found none. We did not penetrate far into the "colonies" in an effort not to disturb the birds more than we already had. Here are a few photos of occupied habitats...There are likely hundreds of acres similar to this on this drying lake. From the boat few could be be detected but as soon as we stepped ashore they were as fleas on a dog., many actually running toward us as if to greet or distract us...They appeared from nowhere almost.. Dr. Warren Conway has expressed a great interest in following up on our discovery to obtain more detailed data and and more accurate count
No comments:
Post a Comment