[NatureNS] Evangeline Beach shorebirds etc., July 19/13 (a bit long)

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From: "James W. Wolford" <jimwolford@eastlink.ca>
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 16:24:13 -0300
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> Date: July 19, 2013 4:20:14 PM ADT
> To: Nature BNS <nature@blomidonnaturalists.ca>, Diana Hamilton  
> <dhamilto@mta.ca>, Sherman Boates <boatesjs@gov.ns.ca>, Sue Abbott  
> <sabbott@bsc-eoc.org>, Julie Paquet <Julie.Paquet@ec.gc.ca>
> Subject: [ValleyNature] Evangeline Beach shorebirds etc., July  
> 19/13 (a bit long)
>
> JULY 19, 2013 - EVANGELINE BEACH -- This morning was quite rainy  
> and overcast, but by 11:30 a.m. (high tide was 10 a.m.) the rain  
> was very light, almost a drizzle, which gradually lightened more  
> and then quit while I did a vigil from my car in the canteen  
> parking lot (car with driver-side facing Cape Blomidon (north).   
> Compared with yesterday's bright and blinding sunlight, today the  
> visibility was perfect, with the flying small shorebirds (peeps)  
> very easy to see against the light gray sky.  The ebbing water/ 
> flats edge was quite close to me when I started, versus much  
> further out/advanced at my start yesterday.  Thus during my watch  
> from 11:30 a.m. to 12:18 p.m., the flats went from quite narrow to  
> fairly broad, but nowhere near how far the water would eventually  
> recede by low tide, which would have been three hours later.
>
> Here is the report from my vigil today: Today I saw a total of 658  
> "peeps" or small shorebirds (prob. mostly semipalmated sandpipers),  
> which is about 200 more than seen yesterday.  All of these were  
> flying along or parallel to the shore, from east to west, and none  
> that I watched landed at all, heading out of sight to the west  
> (toward the mouth of the Cornwallis River).  Flock sizes, in order  
> from 11:30 a.m. to 12:08 p.m., were: 25 + 20 + 35 + 25 + 350 + 20 +  
> 60 + 3 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 30 + 10.  Very probably I missed some  
> peeps, since, like yesterday, the first small flock occurred just  
> when I arrived.
>
> Other birds seen were 9 double-crested cormorants, 18 herring  
> gulls, 5 great black-backed gulls, and 2 immature bald eagles.
>
> A surprise seen fairly close to shore was a SEAL, very probably a  
> harbour seal, seen only briefly and distantly.
>
> I ended my vigil at 12:18 p.m.
> ---------------------------
>
> FURTHER GENERAL INFO' ON OUR MIGRANT SHOREBIRDS here in the Minas  
> Basin Important Bird Area:
>
> For those who don't know, I will summarize the season for the south- 
> bound migrant shorebirds at this site (especially semipalmated  
> sandpipers).  After mostly wintering in South America, most of them  
> take a different route on their migration north through Spring to  
> arrive in the Low Arctic, west of Hudson Bay across to Alaska,  
> where they court, nest, and raise juveniles.  Female adults  
> incubate the eggs, then the male raises the chicks, while the  
> female can recover & fatten up & migrate south before the others.   
> The earliest southbound migrants arrive from late June to (mostly)  
> mid-July.  The next wave of migrants is mostly males, who have by  
> then abandoned the independent juveniles in the north and migrated  
> south.  Finally the third wave, largely naive juveniles, show up  
> here (these three "waves" are herein greatly oversimplified).  All  
> of them are dependent on the nutritious mudflats for fattening up  
> for that long, non-stop-over-the-water, flight to northern South  
> America (Suriname).  Thus the season here is a long one, from early  
> to mid-July to well into September and later to October.  During  
> those many weeks, flocks are constantly arriving while others are  
> departing, when conditions are right for long flights.  (Also  
> consider the common sense that says, if the semi's were not really  
> good at this, natural selection would have weeded out this  
> migratory route.)  Individual semi' sandpipers have been thought to  
> spend 10 to 14 days here in fattening up, but there is some concern  
> that this length of stay could be longer than previously.  One  
> possible reason of many is that commercial digging of baitworms/ 
> bloodworms (Glycera) here for bait for sport-fishing in eastern  
> U.S. results in some of the prey animals like mud shrimps becoming  
> not only less abundant but also less available to the semi'  
> sandpipers.
>
> Here I will invite comments from Julie Paquet of Can. Wildl.  
> Service, Sherman Boates of N.S. Dept. of Nat. Resources, and  
> especially Diana Hamilton of Mount Allison University, who has had  
> a team studying all of this for quite a few years, with many  
> publications.  One of the things they have discovered is that the  
> diet of the semi' sandpipers is much more diverse than previously  
> thought.
>
> Additional important perspective is that these shorebirds have been  
> showing gradual population declines during recent decades, and the  
> reasons are poorly understood, I think.  Quality of nesting  
> habitats and overwintering habitats are big questions, in addition  
> to all of the stop-over spots like ours here.  The local mudflats  
> are extremely biodiverse and incredibly productive (think of the  
> salt-marsh sediment and Grand Pre agricultural crops on the  
> dykelands, which used to be tidal marshes).
> -------------------------
> Cheers from Jim in Wolfville.
> _______________________________________________
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> Nature@blomidonnaturalists.ca
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<html><body style=3D"word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; =
-webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><blockquote =
type=3D"cite"><div style=3D"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; =
margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face=3D"Helvetica" =
size=3D"3" color=3D"#000000" style=3D"font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: =
#000000"><b>Date: </b></font><font face=3D"Helvetica" size=3D"3" =
style=3D"font: 12.0px Helvetica">July 19, 2013 4:20:14 PM =
ADT</font></div><div style=3D"margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; =
margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face=3D"Helvetica" =
size=3D"3" color=3D"#000000" style=3D"font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: =
#000000"><b>To: </b></font><font face=3D"Helvetica" size=3D"3" =
style=3D"font: 12.0px Helvetica">Nature BNS &lt;<a =
href=3D"mailto:nature@blomidonnaturalists.ca">nature@blomidonnaturalists.c=
a</a>&gt;, Diana Hamilton &lt;<a =
href=3D"mailto:dhamilto@mta.ca">dhamilto@mta.ca</a>&gt;