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All: Bernice and I did a rather lazy tour of the E. Shore, but did walk on the Hartlen Pt. harbourside beach, where we met Rita Viau. Rita had found a Sanderling there - a winter resident? migrant? When we walked back to admire four spanking Ipswich Sparrows, a Sharp-shinned Hawk appeared out of nowhere, snatched one, and whizzed off to distance spruces. The sparrows, adapted for life in the bleached dune grasses in winter, were feeding on the dark seaweed on the beach - risky business. Incidentally, a couple of days ago I heard from an environmental scientist in Virginia that the outer-island beaches there had been so devastated by storms this winter, that there were very few wintering Ipswiches, and many were feeding for the fist time in his experience at tidelines. Precipitation (as a surrogate for bad weather) and population size (counts in early fall on Sable I.) are statistically significant negative influences on overwinter survival. At 3-Fathom Hbr. we came across four robins foraging on a lawn.One was a "black-backed" male. I put a photo of it on NS-RBA photos at the end of the "other passerines" folder. I've discussed this black-backed form before, so forgive me if . . . You'll see that the photo'd one is pretty dark-backed, tho' not as dark as some. More striking is its almost black throat. These birds were formerly thought to be a distinct subspecies, _nigrideus_, and sometimes wrongly called "Newfoundland" Robin (rare in insular NF). Sibley refers to their range as "Atlantic Canada", which is not quite right. But, they do nest widely, even in NS. Black-backed birds are probably almost "pure" in northern Ungava, but don't have the well-circumscribed range expected of a true subspecies. Cheers, Ian Ian McLaren
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Index of Subjects