[NatureNS] Large number shorebirds - Grand Pre

References: <20090822001833.HLXW29689.torspm04.toronto.rmgopenwave.com@TANAGER>
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:25:04 -0300
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
From: David Christie <MarysPt@nbnet.nb.ca>
Cc: Sherman Williams <sherm@glinx.com>
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At 3:40 AM -0300 8/24/09, Sherman Williams wrote:

>I would be interested in hearing if those of you who have been 
>keeping a close watch on the shorebird numbers,  are seeing a drop 
>in  numbers beginning tomorrow,  Monday (Aug 24).   Late Sunday 
>evening  (Aug 23) and until about 2 am (Aug 24) the sky over Horton 
>Bluff was  filled with waves of the piping-twittery sounds of 
>high-flying  shorebirds,  all heading southeast.


Hello Sherman,

As numbers of the early-arriving shorebirds had remained very high 
later than usual (c. 100,000 roosting on Mary's Point beach, NB, last 
Wednesday and Thursday) I had been expecting a major departure of the 
early shorebirds as soon as there was a change to cooler weather, and 
your observations indicate that that happened on Sunday night. Here, 
we did not note waves of birds passing over but there was continual 
calling overhead (the sky was clear) between 10 p.m. and midnight, 
perhaps flocks getting organized for departure. (In the past, 
sometimes in the evening, we have witnessed large flocks of 
shorebirds fly higher and higher and disappear towards Nova Scotia.)

Because the usual roosting areas here were completely covered at high 
tide Friday through Monday it is not easy to judge the trend in 
numbers the past few days, but last evening there were about 15,000 
to 20,000 feeding on the mud flats south of the point, which is less 
than half what I probably would have seen in similar conditions last 
week.

Thanks for sharing your observations of the passage overhead.

David
-- 

David Christie
Mary's Point, Harvey, Albert Co., New Brunswick, Canada
http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/maryspt

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