Greetings - on Saturday 8/2 I met up with intrepid Miami birders Roberto "Toe" Torres, Paul "Life is Good" Bithorn, Trey "Big Lens" Mitchell and a number of others, for a tour of the Sugar Cane and sod fields east of Belle Glade FL (near Lake Okeechobee).  The farmers flood the fields to control nematodes and weeds before planting, creating prime conditions for migrating shorebirds.  This management system has been in practice for many years by area farmers, and draws literally thousands of migrating shorebirds, and thousands of herons, egrets, ibises, storks and other water birds to the fields as they dry up.  The spectacle can be dramatic.  We found 2 large fields, totaling maybe 500 acres between them, that had the following birds:

Black-necked Stilt - 2000+
American Avocet - 50
Black-bellied Plover - 200
Semipalmated Plover - 20
Killdeer - 300
Greater Yellowlegs - 2000+
Lesser Yellowlegs - 5000+
Solitary Sandpiper - 5
Spotted Sandpiper - 3
Short-billed Dowitcher - 10
Long-billed Dowitcher - 10
Stilt Sandpiper - 300+
Ruddy Turnstone - 3
Least Sandpiper - 5000+
Semipalmated Sandpiper - 1000+
Western Sandpiper - 100+
Pectoral Sandpiper - 50+
White-rumped Sandpiper - 1

plus:
White Pelican - 10
Wood Stork - 500+
Herons and Egrets - 2000++
Gull-billed Tern - 40
Caspian Tern - 20
Black Tern - 10
Least Tern - 4

This is an excellent example of what could be accomplished if governmental agencies and water management districts were to actively manage for shorebird populations during migration months of April-May, and July-Sept.  Many public lands in Florida are old farm lands, and are already diked and have the infrastructure in place to control water levels.  These places include Lake Apopka Restoration Area (the former Zellwood muck farms, once the premier shorebird site in Florida when farmers practiced the same flooding in the 1970s), Lake Woodruff NWR, Merritt Island NWR (including Shiloh Marsh), Paynes Prairie near Gainesville, St. Marks NWR (Mounds Pools),  and many others.

Are there other readers of the shorebird list that have experience with getting agencies to adopt management plans to promote shorebird habitat?  The NWRs are actively managed for ducks by raising water levels during the winter, why not lower them during shorebird migration?

Bob Wallace
Alachua FL