Ten Mile Beach Field Trip - August 2026

Western Sandpipers, Aug 23 2026. Photograph by Roger Adamson.

Eight birders walked north from Ward Avenue about 8 am on August 23 in very light fog that soon cleared. We were looking for shorebirds, and there was good news and unfortunate news. The unfortunate was that while we had planned to walk to Ten Mile River, State Parks requested that we stop at Inglenook Creek. The good news was the reason for the request; the Snowy Plovers have had a successful year with several chicks fledged and we were asked to minimize disturbance by not going all the way north. Indeed, we encountered at least 10 Snowy Plovers before reaching the creek, and several were in fresh juvenile plumage. Surprisingly, we did not find any banded birds.

The previous several days had been foggy and a variety of shorebirds had been foraging along the beach, but on our day the bright sun and a favorable north wind encouraged the shorebirds to head south. We studied a few groups of Western Sandpipers, but perhaps 200 were seen simply flying by us. We did find Least Sandpipers, Semipalmated Plovers, Killdeers, Black Turnstones, Red-necked Phalaropes, and three Wilson’s Snipes. The shorebird star for most of us was a single Baird’s Sandpiper with its long wings, black legs and buffy breast. We found a profusion of gulls, including maybe 500-600 California Gulls, 300 Western Gulls, and 20 Heerman’s Gulls. Other birds of interest included two Vaux’s Swift and five Elegant Terns. A Peregrine Falcon did not help our search for shorebirds. It was nonetheless a great morning.

Baird’s Sandpiper, Aug 22, 2025. Photograph by Roger Adamson.