Submitted by Kwiaht

Join the San Juan Islands National Monument, San Juan County Land Bank, Kwiaht, COASST and Lopez Island Library in celebrating Fisherman Bay birds for National Public Lands Day and the Migratory Bird Treaty Centennial on Sept. 23-24. Enjoy the natural heritage of Lopez, learn about the status and trends of our island seabirds, and meet some of the local and regional researchers working on bird conservation in the islands.

Professor Julia Parrish, founder of COASST, will open the weekend program on Friday evening, Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. with a presentation on “Seas of Change: Marine Birds as Sentinels of a Warming Ocean” at Lopez Library. Organized nearly 20 years ago, COASST is a regional network of more than 800 community scientists monitoring beached birds from the central coast of California to southeast Alaska. COASST data have been used to assess the impacts of a changing climate, document harmful algal blooms, measure fishery interactions, monitor for avian influenza, and help understand how coastal indigenous peoples survived.

Scientists have observed declines in hundreds of species of birds across North America over the past 25 years. Habitat loss and climate change are both broadly implicated. Here in the islands and the surrounding Salish Sea, fluctuations in the supply of herring and sandlance seem to play a key role in the survival and reproduction of many seabirds, as they also do for Chinook salmon. This summer witnessed a significant die-off of Rhinoceros Auklets in the Salish Sea that Kwiaht ecologist Russel Barsh attributes to a poor, unusually late spawn of sandlance. “As Salish Sea waters grow warmer,” Barsh says, “many fish are spawning earlier or later, which can mean that they are not around when migratory salmon and seabirds come looking for them.”

Much of what we know about changing Salish Sea ecosystems is thanks to the growth of “citizen science” programs that train and organize non-professional researchers to do long term monitoring on a scale far greater than government agencies or university scientists. COASST, a beached-seabird monitoring program, was a pioneer of this approach. Another pioneer was the WSU Beach Watchers program, which Kwiaht helped train and deploy in San Juan County. The Fisherman Bay Marine Health Observatory on Lopez is one of seven community science teams coordinated by Kwiaht, which cooperate with COASST, the National Monument, and other land and wildlife management agencies.

Fisherman Bay is the largest historical estuary in the San Juan Islands, and together with the “seabird coast” of south Lopez from Point Colville to Iceberg Point, one of the best places in San Juan County to observe waterfowl and seabirds, including endangered Marbled Murrelets and beautiful but scarce Tufted Puffins. Birding is growing as a low-impact, high net value visitor activity that appreciates and advocates for biodiversity.

On Saturday, Sept. 24 beginning at 9:30 a.m., you can visit birding stations located on Weeks Point Road overlooking the Weeks Wetland slough, on Bayshore Road at the Otis Perkins turnout between Fisherman Bay and San Juan Channel, and at the Fisherman Bay Spit Preserve a short walk from the public parking area, overlooking the extensive salt marshes on the spit. Birding stations will be supplied with friendly researchers, telescopes, binoculars, and copies of a new, one-sheet field guide prepared by Kwiaht for the San Juan Islands National Monument, which will be available to take home with you.

Canopies will also be set out on the green behind Lopez Plaza with displays on wetland restoration, bird monitoring and public lands conservation.

In the afternoon, join COASST and Kwiaht researchers for Birds & Beer at Edenwild and Bucky’s Grill overlooking Weeks Wetland or patio at The Bay Café overlooking San Juan Channel where you can enjoy refreshments and snacks, and participate in casual talks on the status and conservation of our islands’ birds. Hours are 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., and you can learn more about the facilitators at each site when you visit birding stations in the morning.

Admission to all activities is free. There may be charges for some food and drinks at Beer & Birds locations.

For further information, you may visit Salish Rocks and @kwiaht on Facebook and twitter the week of the event.