Thank You, FSA Partners!

The 2022 shorebird and seabird breeding season is coming to an end and the conservation gains are a result of your hard work. Many of Florida's nesting shorebirds and seabirds depend on active management in order to thrive. Each breeding season, a coordinated network of stewards, rooftop monitors, route surveyors, biologists and law enforcement officers make it possible for shorebirds to successfully raise a new generation. Once again this season, FSA partners met new challenges with grit and grace to ensure a best-case breeding scenario for some of Florida's most charismatic coastal inhabitants.   

To all of the volunteers, land managers, interns, students, officers, shorebird staff, partnership coordinators and many others - THANK YOU -  for your ongoing dedication to raising another generation of Florida's shorebirds and seabirds. The vast network of the Florida Shorebird Alliance makes breeding success possible and highlights the ongoing need for partnership-driven conservation. Your dedication is priceless and greatly appreciated!

To learn more about the successes and challenges from the breeding season, you're invited to attend any and all FSA partnership meetings. They're free and open to the public. Most post-season partnership meetings occur in October. If you don't see the partnership meeting date you're interested in, stay tuned for more dates in October. Contact a local FSA partnership coordinator for details about the meeting.

World Shorebirds Day

Held annually on September 6^th,  World Shorebirds Day is a day for celebrating shorebirds, participating in conservation, and counting birds. Healthy populations of shorebirds mean healthy habitats that humans also rely on, like wetlands and beaches. The Shorebird Conservation Society (SCS) organizes action on a global scale to help people connect with shorebirds and their habitats. The SCS hosts World Shorebirds Day with the aim to:

• Raise awareness of the need to protect shorebirds and their habitats throughout their life cycles.
• Raise awareness of the need for continued shorebird research, monitoring and conservation.
• Connect people with shorebirds through wetland sites around the world.

In addition to the September 6th celebration, you’re invited to participate in shorebird counts during the week of September 1-7. Learn more about participating in the annual celebration and shorebird counts at the Shorebird Conservation Society.

The FSD closes for the season on October 1!

Another breeding season has ended which means it’s time to finish entering your monitoring data before the FSD closes on October 1! It's also a good time to double-check the data you already entered. Every observation contributes valuable information about breeding shorebirds and seabirds, even if observations occurred outside count windows or after the final count window in August – we want to know about late season nesting and chick observations!

Here’s a quick checklist of things to look for:

Are nesting locations correct?

Check to make sure the nesting sites are not located in the water or in heavily vegetated areas. If the location is correct but the imagery is old, please add a comment confirming that the location is correct.

Do all sites have a Final Outcome?

If the final visit to any site (solitary nest, ground colony or rooftop) is ‘Active’, be sure to enter another visit that indicates the site’s final outcome.

Remember: for solitary sites, the nesting outcome ‘Complete’ means that the eggs hatched. If there isn’t a roving chick record to confirm that the nest hatched, please include a comment detailing the evidence that led you to mark the nest as complete. If you know why the nest didn’t hatch, choose a final outcome of ‘No chicks left the nest’ and enter the reason (e.g., overwash, predation, etc). If there was no evidence to confirm the outcome, mark the nest ‘I don’t know the outcome of this site.’

Are your count types correct?

Remember: for colony and rooftop sites, if you could see the entire colony or rooftop, your count type is probably Direct. If you couldn’t see the entire colony or rooftop and you had to do a little bit of math to calculate the count, your count type was an Extrapolated count. If you’re unsure, you can consult our handy Count Types Guide.

Are there any typos?

Look for duplicate entries, counts that seem out of place, or any other possible typos in the data.

Thank you for another dedicated season of shorebird monitoring! Please feel free to email us at FLShorebirdDatabase@MYFWC.com if you have any questions, concerns, or are unsure how to best enter data. We are happy to help!