Hitting the beaches to count Georgia's water birds

In winter, more than 25 shorebird species inhabit Georgia’s coast, including plovers, willets, yellowlegs, curlews, dowitchers, oystercatchers, sandpipers, red knots, dunlins, marbled godwits and avocets.

Exclusive of shorebirds, the water birds include various species of ducks, terns, gulls, egrets, ospreys, pelicans, ibises, herons and others.

“Vast stretches of Georgia's barrier islands remain undeveloped and mostly undisturbed, making them an important wintering spot for a large number and wide variety of shorebirds, terns, gulls and other species,” said Brad Winn, a state Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist who helps coordinate the midwinter count each year.

During Monday’s survey, the birders will hit -- all at about the same time -- the beaches of Georgia’s 14 barrier islands and several sand spits. Their visits will be timed to coincide with a high tide, which pushes the birds out of marshes and other foraging areas onto the beaches, making the counting easier.

One little shorebird, the sparrow-size piping plover, will get special attention.  It's on the federal Endangered Species List  because much of its natural habitat -- open beaches -- has become crowded with too many people along the East Coast. Fewer than 3,000 piping plover breeding pairs are left in the United States and Canada.

During the early 1990s, state and federal biologists devised a plan to survey for the piping plover every five years along Georgia's coast. The first survey proved very successful, and under Winn’s guidance it became an annual event.

It was expanded to include other shorebird species, many of whose numbers also are declining. Then Winn and others decided that since birders were out counting shorebirds, they also should tally other water birds as well.

Typically, more than 70,000 birds are counted in the survey, the vast majority being shorebirds.

In the sky: The moon will be last-quarter Wednesday -- rising about midnight and setting around midday, said David Dundee, astronomer with Tellus Science Museum. Mercury rises out of the east just before dawn. Venus rises out of the east about three hours before dawn. Jupiter is high in the southwest at sunset and sets about four hours later. Saturn rises out of the east about four hours before sunrise and will appear near the moon Monday night.