Date: 5/18/26 2:17 pm From: George Matz via groups.io <geomatz41...> Subject: [AKBirding] Kachemak Bay Shorebirds Session #8
Kachemak Bay Shorebird Monitoring Project
2026 Sessions #8
Stormy but still lots of birds.
On Saturday, May 16 the Kachemak Bay Birders had its eighth of nine
scheduled shorebird monitoring sessions for this year. Our sessions last
two hours. This session started at 5:00 PM. For consistency, starting
time is when the outgoing tide approaches 15.0 feet, or high tide if less.
This session when we started monitoring the outgoing tide was 15.1 feet. A
high tide of 18.6 feet occurred at 3:16 this afternoon. This is our 18th
consecutive year of monitoring, following the same protocol each year.
Because our monitoring dates try to bracket the spring shorebird migration,
the first and last sessions tend to have just a few shorebird sightings.
All observations are submitted to eBird and the ISS portal.
This session we had 17 birders at Homer Spit sites, 3 at Beluga Slough, 5
at the Anchor River, and 2 at the Kasilof River. The Island and Islets team
of 3 monitored the day after due to stormy conditions. Cindy, in Seldovia
did not go out at all because of high seas and said “that’s four monitoring
sessions cancelled this year due to high winds!” A total of 30 birders
participated in this session.
Very windy conditions. At Mariner Park Lagoon, which is a stationary site
where we generally sit, gusts were so strong that it blew away your chair
if you weren’t sitting in it, which happened a couple of times to each of
us. Needless to say, birds were not flying much. According to the NWS
station at the Homer Airport (
https://forecast.weather.gov/data/obhistory/PAHO.html ), at 4:53 PM winds
were from the E at 12 mph, the sky was cloudy, the temperature was 46.9°,
and the barometric pressure was 29.84”. At 6:53 PM. the wind was E at 22mph
with gusts to 35 mph, cloudy with light rain, the temperature was still
45°, and the barometric pressure rose to 29.76”.
As expected, the peak of the migration has passed, but there were still
lots of shorebirds to see as well as newly arrived songbirds. Here are the
22 shorebird species we saw this session, plus the count by site. Nice
demonstration of diversity. The Anchor River has the mot species with 18.
· Black Oystercatcher – Islands & Islets (1). Anchor (1).
