Avra Valley Shorebirds

Shorebirds come second only to sparrows in my birding heart, and many of my friends from the east are surprised to hear how satisfying wader-watching is here in the desert. This arid landscape concentrates the birds at sewage ponds, where they can often be observed at breathtakingly close range. One of my favorite localities is the well-known Avra Valley WWTP, just west of Tucson.

Co-birder Darlene joined Alison and me for today’s visit, when we found some 400 shorebirds on the drawn-down office pond. Most were Black-necked Stilts and Wilson’s Phalaropes, as expected, but we also found a local rarity, a juvenile Semipalmated Sandpiper; it isn’t clear whether a single individual has been responsible for the regular sightings of this species over the last several weeks, or whether multiple birds have been passing through. What is certain is that today’s Western Sandpipers were a new wave, mostly juveniles where before we had been seeing large numbers of adults.

We also came up with a Semipalmated Plover, not at all rare but irresistibly neat as it ran along the edge at our feet. Unfortunately, we couldn’t relocate the molting juvenile Stilt Sandpiper we’d found yesterday with Rog–but there will be more of those to come as this shorebirding season goes on.