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Hi, Neat article in Birder's World. But I also noticed the 3rd article, about birds caught in the DMZ in Korea. There is a NS connection, in that George Archibald, a remarkable Nova Scotian who runs the International Crane Foundation in Wisconsin, has been instrumental in maintaining habitat and helping to conserve Siberian and White-naped Cranes there. And - that appears to be a free, full text, on-line edition of the magazine. Is that normally available, or did you scan this particular edition into your computer? Richard On 1/18/07, Hans Toom <Htoom@hfx.eastlink.ca> wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > Last year was memorable for the Northern Wheatear with 12 birds reported in > 10 Nova Scotia locations. > > > > This diminutive thrush nests on the tundra or the wind swept hills and short > grasslands of our north, especially on Baffin Island. There are two > distinct continental populations, the western population of western Canada > and Alaska and the eastern population of eastern Canada and Greenland. These > two populations do not appear to overlap. The western group migrates to the > west and then southwest. It is believed that the eastern population > migrates east through Greenland and Europe and then southward to Africa > where they over-winter. If this migration pattern theory is correct then > strong northerly winds would be the culprit wind that drives this bird into > our province in the fall. > > > > Research by Dutch scientist Kaspert Thorup and his colleagues have an > alternate explanation. They theorize that the Northern Wheatear's migration > route is not through Europe but directly from their eastern Canada and > Greenland nesting grounds across the Atlantic to Africa, a distance of > 4000km. In this case the birds that show up in Europe are off course and > driven there by south-westerly and westerly winds and the birds that arrive > in southern Canada in our fall are driven here not by northerly winds as > currently believed but by easterly or north easterly winds. > > > > A remarkable bird, indeed! > > > > Here's the text of the article from Birder's World: > http://www.birdersworld.com/brd/default.aspx?c=a&id=822 > > > > OK, so how cold has it been? Here's two photos from yesterday morning at > Portuguese Cove: > http://www.hanstoom.com/Highlights/Highlights15.html > > > > Hans > > > > _______________________________________________________________ > Hans Toom > E-mail: htoom@hfx.eastlink.ca > Migration Count: http://hanstoom.com/NAMC/Index.html > Nature Website: http://hanstoom.com > _____________________________________________________________ -- ################# Richard Stern, 317 Middle Dyke Rd., RR#1 Port Williams, NS, Canada B0P 1T0 rbstern@ns.sympatico.ca rbstern@xcountry.tv sternrichard@gmail.com ###################
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