Manitoba IBA Program Coordinator, Tim Poole provides an update on the Whitewater Lake IBA blitz from August 6th.

Whitewater Lake can be relied on to provide a bounty of birds. Even the overhead electrical wires provided an incredible bounty of birds, with several thousand swallows located along single stretches. Shorebirds are always to be found in large numbers at this time of year, although this will fluctuate depending on lake levels.

Christian Artuso and I came down the afternoon before to do a quick scout of the area looking for large concentrations of shorebirds and other interesting species. The first thing we found just to the north of the IBA was not a bird but a moose. A moose is becoming almost a guaranteed part of any trip to this part of the world – especially the wide open habitats.

Large groups of swallows were gathering around the lake, especially the Species At Risk, the Bank Swallow, present in groups of several thousand along the powerlines. A count revealed that there were around 1500 between each pole, a huge number!

At Sexton’s Island we picked up the family of Clark’s and Western Grebe again. Good job, as these birds were not detected the following morning.

As the evening closed in we were able to find a couple of interesting spots to check the following morning, including a very interesting shorebird spot on the southern side at the end of a road allowance.

On August 6th, 4 groups of 2 people were out and about in the IBA. Due to the holiday weekend, this was a smaller number than usual but hey, the bird migration does not wait! We are still awaiting results from one group but here is a quick overview of how the other three groups got on.

In the west, Gillian and Louanne. 65 species were recorded in total. Highlights included a Peregrine, falcons showing up as large flocks of birds make their presence felt. There were also 300 dowitchers but only 5 species of shorebird. This was interesting and was indicative of the drying out of many of the ephemeral wetlands which were full of shorebirds during the May blitz.

They also counted an impressive 8,110 Bank Swallows and over 800 Tree Swallows in large concentrations.

Bank and Tree Swallows on the roads. Copyright Tim Poole

In the east Christian took out first timer Kathryn from the Manitoba Museum out for a birding experience! They found 3,925 Short-billed Dowitchers, pretty impressive! These were mostly in wetlands on the edge of the lake. They also counted the largest numbers of ducks and grebes, 4,725 Mallard, 1,341 Northern Pintail, 2,007 Blue-winged Teal, 1,884 Eared Grebe and 1,771 Western Grebe. They also counted 5,815 American Coot.

Another highlight was the only Buff-breasted Sandpiper of the day and Snowy Egrets. This came to a total of 86 species.

Following completion of their own area, they drove around to a road on the south side which would not be possible for the southern group. Among others’ they recorded 14 species of shorebird including 963 Stilt Sandpiper, 374 Least Sandpiper and 491 Short-billed Dowitcher.

A selection of shorebird photos from Randy Mooi. From left to right and top to bottom, Lesser Yellowlegs, Least Sandpiper, Wilson’s Phalarope, Short-billed and Long-biiled Dowitcher and Willet. All photos are copyright of Randy Mooi.

In the south, Randy Mooi joined me for the morning. Randy for anyone unaware, is the Curator of Zoology at the Manitoba Museum. The first stop was the old viewing mound, which is still a mound but not pretty much cut off from the road for viewing. A large flock of dowitchers was surpassed by an incredible large number of Western Grebes feeding along the edges of the lake. Our total for the morning was 1900! Much of this area still has the old infrastructure emerging from the water but the toilets have disappeared from sight, no doubt appearing one day from lake as water levels rescind.

Our next stop was an old road allowance for which we would need to walk a mile or so from the car as the road was not driveable. At this point Randy did try to land me in an awkward position with his parking location, me opening the car to almost step in the substance found in the photo on the left!

We eventually made it to the lake shore and found some neat treasures of the lake including a spit of land which given the number of gulls and terns may well be one of the lakes large Franklin’s Gull colonies. There was also an island with large numbers of Double-crested Cormorants and fairly good numbers of American White Pelican.

Shorebirds were also around in good numbers. An American Avocet got especially close to Randy:

A Marbled Godwit also flew in right next to Randy, an apparent magnet for shorebirds that day!

Another interesting feature was the prints in the mud along the lake shore. As with the day before, moose was prevalent in this area as well as numerous other mammalian prints.

Another species to watch out for was Cattle Egret, a total of 10 spotted during the morning.

And also, did we mention the Bank Swallows? There were quite a few of those too. Unfortunately a few were killed on the road by careless drivers. Being from the museum, Randy took some specimens back to work for the collection.

So here are the totals, with one group to report. There were 60,002 birds counted and 104 species, very good for a mornings birding! We will be back at Whitewater this Sunday, the 27th for another go and will post complete results for both in the next week or so.

Species Name	Species Count
Snow Goose	1
Canada Goose	1,051
Wood Duck	2
Blue-winged Teal	2,079
Northern Shoveler	535
Gadwall	79
American Wigeon	11
Mallard	6,174
Northern Pintail	1,382
Green-winged Teal	833
Canvasback	417
Redhead	290
Lesser Scaup	90
Bufflehead	14
Hooded Merganser	2
Ruddy Duck	708
Gray Partridge	7
Pied-billed Grebe	52
Eared Grebe	2,050
Western Grebe	3,818
Double-crested Cormorant	415
American White Pelican	168
American Bittern	6
Great Blue Heron	10
Great Egret	27
Snowy Egret	4
Cattle Egret	14
Black-crowned Night-Heron	31
White-faced Ibis	136
Northern Harrier	13
Bald Eagle	1
Swainson’s Hawk	3
Red-tailed Hawk	9
Sora	16
American Coot	6,602
American Avocet	582
Semipalmated Plover	111
Killdeer	83
Upland Sandpiper	9
Marbled Godwit	46
Stilt Sandpiper	985
Baird’s Sandpiper	61
Least Sandpiper	436
Buff-breasted Sandpiper	1
Pectoral Sandpiper	15
Semipalmated Sandpiper	41
peep sp.	3
Short-billed Dowitcher	4,760
Long-billed Dowitcher	78
Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher	300
Wilson’s Snipe	7
Wilson’s Phalarope	197
Red-necked Phalarope	34
Spotted Sandpiper	15
Greater Yellowlegs	49
Willet	44
Lesser Yellowlegs	403
Franklin’s Gull	1,363
Ring-billed Gull	276
California Gull	1
Herring Gull	6
Black Tern	156
Forster’s Tern	182
Rock Pigeon	2
Mourning Dove	117
Northern Flicker	3
American Kestrel	1
Merlin	2
Peregrine Falcon	2
Eastern Phoebe	1
Western Kingbird	48
Eastern Kingbird	64
Black-billed Magpie	4
American Crow	7
Common Raven	15
Horned Lark	9
Tree Swallow	3,364
Bank Swallow	14,745
Barn Swallow	103
Cliff Swallow	61
Sedge Wren	35
Marsh Wren	36
American Robin	4
European Starling	13
Cedar Waxwing	1
Common Yellowthroat	2
Yellow Warbler	2
LeConte’s Sparrow	2
Nelson’s Sparrow	6
Clay-colored Sparrow	7
Vesper Sparrow	17
Savannah Sparrow	37
Song Sparrow	18
Swamp Sparrow	2
Yellow-headed Blackbird	2,294
Western Meadowlark	53
Baltimore Oriole	1
Red-winged Blackbird	960
Brown-headed Cowbird	3
Brewer’s Blackbird	29
Common Grackle	96
blackbird sp.	500
American Goldfinch	8
House Sparrow	34