I don’t often have an entire day for birding but yesterday I was able to do an entire day at a place an hour east that gets a lot of shorebirds coming through in August. This site has good shorebird passage even though it is not along an ocean. This year, the lack of rain and hot temperatures have led to a lot of mud being exposed so there is plenty of food, making the stopover worth it for southbound shorebirds. Being in a kayak, most shorebird species don’t see you as a threat so you are not interfering with their feeding at all which is a great way see birds and get photos.

Salmon Arm Bay (General), Columbia-Shuswap, British Columbia, CA
Aug 25, 2021 7:19 AM – 6:39 PM
Protocol: Traveling
4.0 kilometer(s)
Checklist Comments:    Kayaked along mudflats to far west bay past river. Walked mudflat including back pond, walked to and around Christmas Island and then kayaked around wharf.
61 species

Canada Goose  145
Wood Duck  7
Blue-winged Teal  3
Northern Shoveler  4
Gadwall  117   
American Wigeon  81
Mallard  135
Northern Pintail  1   
Green-winged Teal  7
Redhead  4
Bufflehead  4
Hooded Merganser  6
Common Merganser  69
Ring-necked Pheasant  1
Pied-billed Grebe  5
Western Grebe  180 

Eurasian Collared-Dove  1
Virginia Rail  1
American Coot  55
Semipalmated Plover  4
Killdeer  17

Stilt Sandpiper  11 

Sanderling  2

Baird’s Sandpiper  123

Least Sandpiper  150

Pectoral Sandpiper  47

Semipalmated Sandpiper  18

Western Sandpiper  3

Long-billed Dowitcher  2

Red-necked Phalarope  35

Spotted Sandpiper  18

Solitary Sandpiper  1

Greater Yellowlegs  9
Lesser Yellowlegs  21

Ring-billed Gull  125

Herring Gull  6   
American White Pelican  63

Great Blue Heron  35

Osprey  4
Northern Harrier  2

Bald Eagle  6
Great Horned Owl  1 

Belted Kingfisher  2

Downy Woodpecker  1
Merlin  1
Peregrine Falcon  1
Black-billed Magpie  1
American Crow  30
Black-capped Chickadee  9
Violet-green Swallow  10
Barn Swallow  20
European Starling  5
American Pipit  1
Savannah Sparrow  6
Spotted Towhee  1
Red-winged Blackbird  3
Brewer’s Blackbird  30

Common Yellowthroat  6

Yellow Warbler  1
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s)  1
Western Tanager  1