Wildlife & Habitat
Willapa National Wildlife Refuge preserves a number of unique ecosystems
including salt marshes, muddy tideflats, rain drenched old growth
forests, and dynamic coastal dunes and beaches. Freshwater marshes
and grasslands are found along the southern shore of Willapa Bay.
Visitors to the Refuge can enjoy viewing a wide variety of wildlife.
Roosevelt elk, black bear, shorebirds, and spawning salmon are just
a few of the many species that reside on the Refuge. The refuge
is home to several endangered and threatened species including the
snowy plover, marbled murrelets, and brown pelican. Other birds
that are commonly spotted throughout the refuge include bald eagles,
great blue herons, peregrine falcons, red-tailed hawks, marsh wrens,
and golden-crowned kinglets.
Western Snowy Plover
Marbled Murrlet
Species Lists
Western Snowy Plover
The western snowy plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus)
is a small shorebird distinguished from other plovers (family Charadriidae)
by its small size, pale brown upper parts, dark patches on either
side of the upper breast, and dark gray to blackish legs. Snowy
plovers weigh between 1.2 and 2 ounces. They are about 5.9 to 6.6
inches long. During the breeding season (March through September),
plovers can be seen nesting along the shores, peninsulas, offshore
islands, bays, estuaries, and rivers of the United States' Pacific
Coast. Plover nests usually contains three tiny eggs, which are
camouflaged to look like sand and barely visible to even the most
well-trained trained eye. Plovers will use most anything they can
find on the beach to make their nests, including kelp, shells, driftwood,
rocks, & even human footprints.
Snowy plovers have natural predators such as falcons, raccoons,
coyotes, and owls. There are also predators that humans have introduced
or whose populations they have helped to increase, including crows
and
ravens, red fox, and domestic dogs. Human can be thought of as predators
too, because people drive vehicles, ride bikes, fly kites and bring
their dogs to beaches where the Western Snowy Plover lives and breeds.
All of these activities can frighten or harm plovers during their
breeding season.
Energy is very important to this small bird. Every time humans,
dogs, or other predators cause the birds to take flight or run away,
they lose precious energy that is needed to maintain their nests.
Often, when a Plover parent is disturbed, it will abandon its nest,
which increases the chance of a predator finding the eggs, sand
blowing over and covering the nest, or the eggs getting cold. This
can decrease the number of chicks that hatch in a particular year.
Did you know that a kite flying overhead looks like a predator to
a plover? A kite over a nesting area can keep an adult off the nest
for long periods of time. The Western snowy plover has been living
on the Pacific Coast for thousands of years, but was listed by the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as threatened in 1993, due to low
population and decreased habitat.
For more information, please go to US
Fish & Wildlife species profile.
Marbled Murrlet
Nesting high up in the old-growth conifers of the Pacific Coast,
these enigmatic little seabirds were one of the last North American
birds to have their nests discovered. Marbled Murrelets are strongly
tied to a narrow strip of land and water along the West Coast, usually
nesting within 30 miles of the ocean and foraging at sea within
three miles of the coastline. These birds face a powerful triumvirate
of threats--logging, gill-net mortality, and oil spills--and have
experienced dramatic recent population declines.
Marbled Murrelets are small, puffin-like birds with short bills,
long wings, and short tails. Adults in breeding plumage are brown
overall, with the head and upperparts darker brown and the upperparts
mottled lighter brown. In contrast, adults in non-breeding plumage
are a mixture of black, white, and gray. Birds have black heads,
white collars, white underparts, grayish backs, extensive white
on the sides of the rump, and black wings.
Marbled Murrelets are strictly birds of the Pacific Coast of North
America. These birds nest in a narrow range along the Pacific, from
the Aleutian Islands of Alaska south through British Columbia, Washington,
and Oregon, to central California. Marbled Murrelets are generally
found in nearshore waters (within about three miles of shore) near
their nesting sites on a year-round basis, although in certain places
in Alaska and British Columbia, birds move to more protected waters
during the winter. This species can also be found wintering south
of its breeding range, along the coast of southern California to
extreme northwestern Baja California.
For more information, please go to US
Fish & Wildlife species report.
Species Lists
Bird
List
Mammal
List
Amphibians
and Reptiles List
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