Congratulations to Glennis Lewis and Louanne Reid, our March contest winners. Their checklist from the Oak Lake and Plum Lakes IBA was selected at random from an Excel spreadsheet. We had nearly 30 entries in March, and will expect a fair few more for our April contest.
We have another contest in April. All eligible checklists will again need to be entered under the IBA Protocol. Just to spice it up, we decided to add the stipulation that the eligible checklist needs to contain at least one goose or swan. April is the month when we can start to expect to see large numbers of waterfowl and other wetland birds gather as the ice cracks on lakes rivers across Manitoba.
To enter, all you need to do is share your eBird checklist with the account ‘ManitobaIBA’ or iba@naturemanitoba.ca and make sure you use the IBA Protocol (here is a reminder of the protocol).
For anyone not on eBird, you can still enter by adding information to our online reporting form.
Please note that we have one gas card per month, and each individual checklist will be entered as a single entry.
We have also just published a series of 15 new IBA cards, including ones for Riverton Sandy Bar, Whitewater Lake, Netley-Libau Marsh and our new IBA at Ellice-Archie and Spy Hill-Ellice. Each card includes suggested totals of birds that members of the the public could report to the program (you can now use our new reporting page to do this). These great resources would be perfect for birders, producers, wildlife enthusiasts, or hikers, sailors, or indeed anyone living and working in areas around local IBAs. For the full list of cards, and links,, check out the page on our website.
If you would like to receive one, or even a number of these cards, please email Tim Poole at iba@naturemanitoba.ca, or call the Nature Manitoba office at (204) 943-9029.
To give you an idea of what the cards look like, here is the card for Ellice-Archie and Spy Hill-Ellice IBA.
With spring upon us, we will begin to plan ahead with an early spring event soon. Watch this space!
Manitoba Important Bird Areas Program 