On this mild, sunny morning following a day of continuous rain, a friend and I headed down to Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area with the expectation of finding a good variety of shorebirds. After all, reports on eBird during the preceding week indicated that large numbers had been observed and April tends to be the peak month of the spring shorebird migration.
Driving through the refuge, we found what appeared to be ideal shorebird habitat: flooded fields and ephemeral pools covered much of the floodplain though water levels in the central canal and permanent pools were high, more attractive to waterfowl than to shorebirds. Indeed, we did observe thousands of ducks and coot, some Canada geese and smaller numbers of grebes, white pelicans, cormorants and great blue herons but our shorebird sightings were limited to six killdeer.
How to explain the sudden dearth of shorebirds along the Missouri River? Perhaps storms to our south or today's northwest breeze put the breaks on their migration. Perhaps they found ideal feeding conditions elsewhere and will soon return. Most likely, we were just unlucky, perhaps missing an influx of these migrants by only a couple of hours. Birding "success" relies on both knowledge and luck. We'll try again soon.
