Since 2002, the Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism has coordinated a volunteer effort to survey shorebirds at wetlands throughout Kansas. The objective of these surveys is to document shorebird use at a variety of locations throughout Kansas in order to identify important shorebird use areas besides those already surveyed regularly such as Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area, The Nature Conservancy's Cheyenne Bottoms Preserve, and Quivira National Wildlife Refuge.

Volunteers count shorebirds at a wetland of their choice for five years. Surveys are conducted during five, two-week periods during spring (16 March-31 May) and eight, two-week periods during summer-fall (1 July-31 October). Such frequent surveys are needed to describe migration times and are necessary to detect shorebird use of temporary habitats.

Over 50 people have volunteered to survey 51 total sites although some have not been surveyed every year. Three years of surveys have been conducted. All data are provided to the International Shorebird Survey which has been coordinating shorebird surveys in the Western Hemisphere for about 30 years. Reports for the 2002, 2003, and 2004 survey years are available in PDF format. Some volunteers will be unable to continue for their entire survey period; therefore, if you are interested in continuing surveys at one of these sites, contact us for more information.