Waterbird Surveys

Dennis and Bob surveying on Walker Lake

GBBO has been monitoring populations of fish-eating birds over the last year on several western Nevada lakes, including Walker Lake and Pyramid Lake. Our monitoring efforts occur year-round, although they are more intensive and frequent during the spring and fall migration periods. Our goals are to better understand how waterbird populations at Walker Lake have, and are, changing as the lake shrinks, as dissolved solids increase, and as fish populations decline. We are also interested in determining the extent to which other nearby lakes "take up the slack" and provide habitat for birds that formerly used Walker Lake during migration. 

At present, Walker Lake exhibits substantially reduced numbers of several fish-eating waterbird species, and very large populations of phalaropes and Eared Grebes, which feed on the aquatic invertebrates that thrive in saline lakes. In these respects, it is becoming similar to Mono Lake, but we consider the situation to be reversible if water deliveries to the lake increase again.  Our monitoring program will continue, and as efforts to increase inflows to Walker Lake bear fruit, we can document recovery of its fish-eating waterbirds.

- John