News: Shorebirds

[The Peregrine Chick]

For folks wanting to know a bit more detail, Cornell's All About Birds site is a good reference:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Whimbrel/id

[birdcamfan]

Thank you. I had never heard of this type of bird before and was interested in what size this bird is. I looked it up and they are a medium sized bird (large for a wader) of 15 to 18 inches. Hard to believe how far they can go!

[Kinderchick]

Great story! Thanks for posting, Cathy! Hopefully, Chinquapin didn't survive, just to be eaten by a raptor!

[Saoirse]

What a terrific good news story! Thanks for finding it, Cathy179 -- and for posting it, TPC! Look forward to hearing more from you in the future, Cathy179.  

[The Peregrine Chick]

Nunavut shorebird flies through Hurricane Irene - and survives
Nunatsiaq News / 30 August 2011

A plucky shorebird on its way south from Nunavut’s Southampton Island made headlines this week in the United States when it survived a flight through Hurricane Irene, the same storm that caused New York City to shut down for a day.

Whimbrels are long-beaked brown shorebirds, which spend their summers in Nunavut where they seek out wet lowlands and shores.

Nine days ago, on Aug. 22 a whimbrel – dubbed Chinquapin by the team that tagged the bird in 2010 — started off Aug. 22 on his annual, 4,000-plus kilometre journey to the mouth of the Amazon in Brazil, traveling at speeds of up to 80 km an hour.

Chinquapin’s travels have been tracked since May, 2010, when researchers in the southern U.S. fitted him with a tiny radio transmitter.

Since then, biologists at the Center for Conservation Biology in Virginia have been following Chinquapin’s path — and they were nervous last Wednesday when the bird flew right through the dangerous northeast section of the hurricane.

But on Saturday, their tracking showed Chinquapin was resting on Eleuthera Island in the Caribbean.

Whimbrels are “capable of really amazing migration flights” of up to 5,600 km without a rest, according to Bryan Watts, director of the College of William and Mary’s Center for Conservation Biology.

“[But] it’s sort of bad to hit a big storm at the end of a flight that long,” Watts told USA Today.

Before Chinquapin set off from Nunavut, he had likely doubled his weight, which helped provide him with enough energy to fly through the hurricane.

But it’s still a mystery to biologists how Chinquapin managed to stay his course: other migratory birds have been known to die or lose their way when travelling through a storm like Hurricane Irene, with its winds of 175 km/h.

In 2010 this same bird flew around Tropical Storm Colin while a second bird flew into the storm and did not survive.


Nunatsiaq Online - Nunavut shorebird flies through Hurricane Irene and survives

(and thanks to Cathy179 for finding this story)

[Saoirse]

Seven an unlucky number for piping plovers

This is really interesting. As a child (and, actually, for quite a number of years past that time, too), I used to see these birds frequently at the beach. But it's been a long time since I saw one last. Thanks for this thread, TPC.

[The Peregrine Chick]

Photo by Dennis

For those wanting more information on the plovers you can check out their blog Peep-lo .

For species information, you can check out the Piping Plover pages on the Manitoba Species-at-Risk website.

And yes, if it seems kind of similar, the Peregrine Project set up both sites for the Plover Program, initially when I worked with the plovers but now just because these amazing little birds need all the exposure they can get.  The breeding season is over for 2011, but if you want to follow along for next year, I would recommend subscribing to their blog - they don't post often because field work means long hours, but it is really their only communications outlet.  The system is automated, so if you decided to unsubscribe later, the system does it right away.

[The Peregrine Chick]

Seven an unlucky number for piping plovers
Winnipeg Free Press - 28 July 2011 - Martin Zeilig

FOR a bird on the endangered species list, seven is not necessarily a lucky number. According to those tracking the piping plover, only seven of the stocky shorebirds have been identified to date in the province.

"Last year, we had seven birds, and in 2006... we counted eight birds," said Ken Porteous, Manitoba co-ordinator of the 2011 International Piping Plover Breeding Census.  Porteous noted that as far back as the 1930s, biologists were warning the situation facing the piping plover was critical.

The piping plover, which nests on beaches around Lake Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba and formerly at West Shoal Lake, is a little smaller than a robin, with a white breast, abdomen and rump and pale brown to grey back, head and wings, like the colour of dry sand. It has a black forehead and neck band and orange legs and bill.

Alas, piping plover nests are extremely vulnerable to predation and human disturbance.

"Threats to piping plovers include loss of nesting habitat, all terrain vehicles, sunbathers or other recreationalists, encroachment of vegetation and flooding of nests or feeding areas by periodic high water levels," says Porteous.  "The nest itself is a mere scrape in the sand, lined with and camouflaged by larger pebbles. Piping plover predators include gulls, crows, northern harriers, skunks, raccoons, foxes and coyotes."

In recent years, piping plover protection has become a part of the Grand Beach Provincial Park Management Plan, with park staff helping to protect the birds by fencing off nesting areas.

"With the number of piping plovers declining, it's a safe indication that something isn't in balance in the environment," said Porteous. "I really don't know what that is. There is no villain here. We are simply in a high water cycle. But, in this day and age, there just shouldn't be an excuse to lose a species in a country as rich and diverse as Canada. And yet, we add species to our endangered species list every year.


Its been a bad year for a number of at-risk bird species ...