2012 Snowy Plover winter surveys in northwest Baja California

By Eduardo Palacios

On 14-17 January 2012, two teams of two-observers each surveyed the Snowy Plover population wintering in Bahía de San Quintín, Baja California, Mexico. Results are shown by type of habitat and locality of Bahia de San Quintin in Table 1.

On 18 January 2012 we also surveyed the barrier beach of Estero de Punta Banda (15 km south of Ensenada) but we did not find any plovers.

We searched for banded birds but did not find any. The absence of banded birds and the small difference between breeding and wintering populations (77 birds, 25% larger in winter) confirm that the Snowy Plover population in Bahía de San Quintín is mostly resident. However, there seems to be seasonal local movements (differences in habitat use) among sites with sandy habitats. We plan to start banding young and adults to learn more about habitat use and human disturbance influence on breeding performance in the area.

To learn more about this project, please contact Eduardo Palacios.

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Habitat	Site	Breeding/2011	Wintering/2012
Barrier beach	Punta Azufre	22	125
Dune-backed beach	El Playón	11	55
Dune-backed beach	Playa San Ramón	113	4
Dune-backed beach	La Pinta-Los Sabios	5	89
Salt flat	Laguna Figueroa	125	36
Salt flat	La Salina	7	3
Salt pond	Salinas San Martín	17	15
Total		300	327
Table 1. Wintering adult Snowy Plover in Bahía de San Quintín, B.C. For comparison, data on the breeding population surveyed last breeding survey window are also shown.

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