Volunteers Needed for Pigeon Guillemot Observers

By Bob Phreaner

Wouldn’t you like to spend a tranquil early morning hour on the beach watching fascinating and photogenic birds while conducting Citizen Science? Your OPAS funding and the Clallam County Marine Resources Committee has supported the hiring of a data collator for this Puget Sound wide endeavor to monitor the breeding success of Pigeon Guillemots (PIGU). Since 2016 the mean population of PIGU breeding in Clallam County has been stable at approximately six hundred. Volunteers dress to blend into the beach, sit motionless, enjoy the spectacle and record our observations. I have been fortunate enough to participate in the Pigeon Guillemot breeding survey at Port Williams with Dan Stahler who provides the following invitation to join us.

The 2022 Pigeon Guillemot Survey season will begin in the first week of June. The Community Science project has been collecting data for over 20 years, 8 years in Clallam County. It began with the Whidbey Audubon Society, but has grown into a regional, Salish Sea project. The data is used by the WDFW agency as an indicator of the health of the Salish Sea. The data collection is done by volunteers once a week for 10 weeks. You do not have to be an expert to participate. If you enjoy getting out on the beach early in the morning, observing nature, and being a part of an important effort to learn about a key bird species, then be a volunteer data collector. It involves being at a specific site once a week for an hour and counting the number of Pigeon Guillemots (PIGU) seen, the times they fly to their nest burrows in the cliff, and the type of fish they deliver to the nestlings. Training is provided via a very good video series that you can explore on the website below. To learn more about this very satisfying beach activity visit the Salish Sea Guillemot Network website at pigeonguillemot.org

If you are concerned that you do not have enough experience, you can be assigned to observe with an experienced volunteer and learn about the survey procedures. You could then decide if you want to accept a site of your own. Also, substitute observers are needed to fill in for those observers that have been carried off and eaten by eagles. Usually there are about 25 volunteers working the beaches of Clallam County each season.

To volunteer contact Ed Bowlby the Clallam County coordinator at edbowlby2@gmail.com