How can homeowners create a "good" bird habitat? Don shows viewers how, then explains why, birds have bills of such different shapes and sizes. In part two of the Alaska miniseries, Don and Lillian visit the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival in Homer, Alaska where 100,000 migrating shorebirds, including Western Sandpipers, Black-bellied Plovers, and Godwits stop on their journey north. They also offer tips on keeping a list of property birds and provide a time-out so viewers can watch beautifully camouflaged Surfbirds in their shoreline habitat.
How-To: Creating Good Bird Habitat
The key to creating good bird habitat on your property lies in creating a diversity of shrubs, trees, and plantings that provide food, shelter and nesting sites for birds. Also provide birdfeeders, birdhouses, and water. Do an inventory of your property to see what valuable trees and shrubs you already have, then add other plantings. Create varied heights of vegetation, including tall evergreen and deciduous trees, small trees and shrubs that produce berries and seeds, flowers, and lawn or other ground covers. When buying plants, buy and group several of the same plants together; it will be more visible to the birds.
People and Birds: The Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival, Homer Alaska Will occur May 4-7, 2000
Located on the beautiful shores of Kachemak Bay, the Homer Spit is one of the most accessible places for shorebird viewing in Alaska. Access available via a scenic 5 hour drive south of Anchorage, or take one of the many daily flights from Anchorage International Airport to Homer. See over 20 species of shorebirds including up to 10,000 new arrivals each day. Shorebirds commonly seen during the festival include: Black-Bellied, American Golden, Pacific Golden, and Semipalmated Plover; Hudsonian, Bar-tailed, and Marbled Godwit; Ruddy and Black Turnstone; Surfbird; Semipalmated, Western, and Least Sandpiper; Dunlin; Short-billed Dowitcher; and Red-necked Phalarope. Festival enthusiasm has led to protection of critical shorebird habitat. Kachemak Bay has been included in the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network.
Contact:
Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival
Box 541
Homer, AK 99603
Phone: (907) 235-7740
Fax: (907) 235-8766
BIRD HOTLINE (907) 235-PEEP
E-mail: Homer@xyz.net
Website: www.homeralaska.org
Time Out To Watch: Surfbirds
Surfbirds are western shorebirds that breed in Alaska and winter along the west coast. They feed among the rocks, picking up insects, small crustaceans, barnacles, and mollusks.
