Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge Update, Nov. 2019

By Carolyn Vance

Fall migration is fully on, with more and more shorebirds, raptors, ducks and geese arriving. We saw our first Pacific Golden Plover on our last Saturday of the month tour in September. November will be a busy month at the refuge with our Ridgway’s Rail Count scheduled for the end of the month, four more Rail Predator surveys, two more Green Sea Turtle tagging dates scheduled by National Marine Fisheries and our yearly shorebird survey scheduled in addition to our regular high and low tide surveys, Wednesday Work Day and Refuge Tours.

Speaking of rails, the Refuge host-ed three different releases of the captive raised birds for the San Diego refuge complex for a total of 24. Our last count in March only had 26 pairs, so we hope to hear/see more rails this month.