Bill Watson Memorial Waterbird Count

photo of a Great Egret Roost
Great Egret Roost at Tonawanda WMA, August 2010


photo of a tagged Great Egret
Tagged Great Egret seen at Batavia Wastewater Treatment Plant August, 2010

About the Count

Beginning in the second week of July and continuing through the second week of October, waterbird counts are held each week on the upper Niagara River and Iroquois NWR and vicinity. The count includes Great Egrets and other colonial nesting waterbirds on the upper Niagara River and around the Iroquois NWR complex as they return to communal roosts starting approximately an hour prior to sunset.

Contact Debbie Suggs and/or Celeste Morien for data compilation:



photo of Bill Watson
Bill Watson at the Hamburg Hawkwatch, April 2010

About Bill

Bill Watson was an active member of the Buffalo Ornithological Society starting in 1985 and participated in many of the society's counts, surveys, and field trips. His main interest was with waterbirds, primarily Great Egrets and Double-crested Cormorants for which he kept diligent notes on their nesting and roosting behaviors in the Western New York region.

Much of the data Bill collected contributed greatly towards banding studies managed by Chip Weseloh of the Canadian Wildlife Service, and has led to publications detailing the migratory and nesting behaviors of Great Egrets and other colonial nesting waterbirds in the Great Lakes region.