If you live near the coast from Baja Mexico to Washington state, and would like to help California brown pelicans, mark your calendar for October 15, the second bi-annual west coast brown pelican survey. You can find information on the survey here.

This survey, led by the Audubon network, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird, will help to define the distribution and abundance of Brown Pelicans and track shifts in population structure. This information is critical considering the brown pelican has just experienced seven straight years of poor breeding success in this subspecies, and the low abundances of some of its key prey.

In the kickoff survey, 186 people at 175 locations surveyed known roost and coastal sites from Washington to Mexico. Participants included birders, brown pelican enthusiasts, and professional biologists. Participants entered their data directly into eBird. Over 6300 pelicans were observed, and all the records can be found on eBird. Preliminary results can be found here. We expect many more pelicans will be seen in this post-breeding fall survey. We hope you can join and be a part of this great effort for one of our iconic coastal birds!