Shorebird population problems

Home
Blogs

Jim Williams has been watching birds and writing about their antics since before "Gilligan's Island" went into reruns. Join him for his unique insights, his everyday adventures and an open conversation about the birds in your back yard and beyond.

Wingnut archive

Shorebird population problems

Posted by: Jim Williams under Bird biology, Bird conservation, Bird migration Updated: November 19, 2009 - 10:26 AM

0
comments
print

Tweet
share

email
Email share

your name

your email

recipients email

+ add a comment add a comment

Ever wonder why populations of a given species of bird might or might not be growing? Bob Russell, biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, working from the St. Paul office, recently posted some breeding shorebird information. He had just returned from a National Shorebird Council meeting in New Jersey.

His report included these remarks (there has been some editing):

Piping Plover conservation in the Great Lakes is finally paying off as several pairs bred in northern Wisconsin (Apostle Islands), in Ontario, and in northern Illinois (one pair). Red flags continue for this population (70+ pairs) with birds lost to botulism and some killed by Merlins that are moving south as a breeding bird in the Sleeping Bear Dunes region of Michigan. Several University of Minnesota researchers (current and former students and faculty) are leading the effort to understand this species in the Northern Great Plains and Great Lakes.

Semipalmated Sandpipers are a species whose numbers have been severely decreased in the Bay of Fundy migration staging area. This is likely due to a dike across the upper bay that destroyed tidal flow and the birds’ chief food source. There also are problems in the birds’ northern South America wintering areas. In Guyana and Surinam a local version of "birding" is to go out with long wires and whip them up and down into a flock of shorebirds, killing many in the process. This is not done by impoverished folks for subsistence but by teenagers and families that often arrive at the site in rather well-off SUVs, making a day of it at the beach (mudflat). Several hundred thousand shorebirds may be harvested in this manner.

Aerial surveys conducted in February 1982 found almost two million shorebirds in coastal northern South America. In December 2008 a similar census found fewer than half a million birds in the same area.

Nesting attempts this year by many breeding birds in the vicinity of Hudson Bay were thought to have failed due to the cold early summer. No Little Gulls at all were known to have fledged near Churchill. Productivity in other parts of Alaska and the western Arctic was thought to be normal. Some folks noted increased shrub production and coverage in the Arctic which might be affecting tundra species like American Golden-plover. (This is thought to be climate-related).

(Guy Morrison of the Canadian Wildlife Service provided the data on Guyana and northern South America.) The photo is of a Semipalmated Sandpiper taken in Alaska last summer. The name of the bird refers to partial webbing between the three toes pointing forward.

older post

Unusual guide to bird ID

newer post

Hawk-Owls -- lots of them

0
Comments

Be the first to comment

0
comments
print

Tweet
share

email
Email share

your name

your email

recipients email

+ add a comment add a comment

from the homepage

Post By Category

Movies (2)	Animals (2)
Photos (2)	Holiday shopping (2)
Bird biology (168)	Bird books (38)
Bird conservation (90)	Bird feeding (51)
Bird identification (96)	Bird interactions (35)
Bird migration (85)	Bird personalities (14)
Bird sightings (70)	Bird travels (68)
Birds in the backyard (60)	Minnesota birding sites (37)
Nesting (40)	Photography (2)
Events (1)	Birding equipment (16)