Since 2012, Christian Artuso has served as the Chair of the Manitoba Important Bird Areas Program Steering Committee. We were recently sad to hear that Christian has accepted as post with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Ottawa. He will be leaving Bird Studies Canada at the end of this month and starting his new role in August, departing for Ottawa by the end of that month.

We will miss Christian’s incredible dedication to bird conservation in Manitoba, his enthusiasm, his warmth, quirky sense of humour and of course, his incredible birding skills which is always only so happy to pass on to everyone.

Without Christian’s support, we would have no IBA Program in Manitoba. Along with Carol Scott and Paula Grieef, it was Christian who worked to establish the program. For the three coordinators, it was Christian who would be our go-to person for advice, a sounding board, and a friend.

Christian is a well known figure in the Manitoba birding world. As well as his IBA involvement, he has been a long-standing committee member for the Manitoba Chimney Swift Initiative. He also served on various other committees, advising Masters and PhD students, the management of community pastures, the COSEWIC subcommittee for birds, and so much more. Of course Christian’s lasting legacy will be the superb manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas.

For these reasons Christian will be very much missed by the entire Manitoba birding community.

Thank you Christian for everything you have done for bird conservation in our province!

Whitewater Lake is the best place in Manitoba to view large concentrations of shorebirds during migration. Come join us for a morning looking for these special birds. We will be looking to fill 5 groups of between 2 and 4 people per group.

We will provide lunch at the end of the morning.

Please email iba@naturemanitoba.ca to express an interest in registering.

Our next blitz will be a shorebird blitz of Delta Marsh IBA. We will be looking to fill 5 groups of between 2 and 4 people per group. We are focusing on finding large groups of shorebirds and potentially other waterbirds. We are also interested in recruiting 2 or 3 people willing to walk along the beaches of the IBA.

We will provide a light picnic lunch at the end of the morning.

Please email iba@naturemanitoba.ca to express an interest in registering.

Location: Meet at parking lot at Riverton Sandy Bar IBA – Click here for the location of the Riverton Sandy Bar Parking lot.

Date: Friday August 16th

Time: 8am to 12pm

Please note that there is no outhouse at this parking lot.  Closest bathrooms will be in the town of Riverton.

We are planning our second weed pull in 2019 at the Riverton Sandy Bar IBA.

The purpose of this Weed Pull is to once again clear an area of Sandy Bar to make the habitat more attractive to Piping Plover. This shorebird species last nested at Sandy Bar in 2004. With low lake levels and a large open sandy area we hope that the Piping Plover may once again make an appearance at Sandy Bar.

This is always a popular event. We are planning an earlier weed pull in 2019 following advice from botanists that we should pull the invasive clover before the fall when the plants turn to seed.

It would be great to have you join us on the 16th. Please feel free to forward this to others who may be interested in pulling weeds, meeting others and learning about the migrating birds at Sandy Bar.

Things to bring: Please bring:

• Weather appropriate clothing and footwear
• Gardening gloves if you have them
• Binoculars
• Water
• a bagged lunch (coffee and snacks provided at start)
• sunscreen
• a hat
• rain jacket if required

Please email iba@naturemanitoba.ca to express an interest in registering.

Manitoba Important Bird Areas Program Coordinator, Tim Poole, will be giving a morning workshop on shorebird identification at Oak Hammock Marsh. We will give an indoor presentation for around 1 hour and spend some time outdoors looking at birds in the field.

Entry is free, but we only have space for 20 people. To book, please call Paula Grieef at 204 467-3243.

On July 14th 2019, there were two blitzes looking for Red-headed Woodpeckers in IBAs. The first was in the North, West and East Shoal Lakes IBA (see here and here). A group from the Brandon Naturalists, Gillian, Glennis, Louanne and Kathryn, set out in two groups to look for Red-headed Woodpeckers. They looked in an area on the east side of the IBA, focusing on previous sightings. In total they found breeding pairs, all marked on the map below. They also found a single dead bird on the road.

Thank you to everyone who took this initiative to go and find these endangered birds in this IBA!

Thank you Kelsey for an excellent report last week on our Red-headed Woodpecker Blitz at the North, West and East Shoal Lakes IBA. This is a short blog, with a few photos from the day, and a review of the results.

You can read Kelsey’s report at this link.

Birds

In total we counted over 3,800 birds and 120 species. Over 80% of the birds were counted in the IBA. The most common species was our old friend the Red-winged Blackbird, with 589 counted, of which 430 were in the IBA. Other impressive numbers were Song Sparrow (187) and Western Grebe (162). The Western Grebes, mainly counted from PR415, were carrying young. A windstorm had wiped out some of the colony earlier in the spring, so the sight of young was very much a good news story.

Great Egrets, American Bittern and Great Blue Herons are always good species to find. The Snowy Egret though did not show itself on the day. 51 Great Egrets suggests there must be a sizable colony within the IBA, possibly on the strip of land between West and East Shoal Lake. A surprisingly high number of Sandhill Crane (49) were encountered.

We encountered nine species of raptor, including 22 Red-tailed Hawk. Bald Eagles and Northern Harriers were unsurprisingly fairly numerous. 32 American Kestrel is not a surprise given that this species nests in the same habitat as our target Red-headed Woodpeckers. Below photos of a Red-tailed Hawk and an angry Merlin, both copyright of Randy Mooi.

Shorebirds are always fun, and we found 14 species, with Stilt Sandpiper being the most common. Early records of these northern breeders might suggest that these were failed breeders already taking part in their southbound migration.

Red-headed Woodpeckers

Finally, our target species. the Red-headed Woodpecker is fairly abundant in this IBA. We also surveyed a large area around the IBA. In total we found this species at 14 points in the IBA. At two of these points, three woodpeckers were detected. This suggests a breeding population of around 16 breeding pairs in the IBA. We also found at least 7 breeding pairs around the IBA. In total there were 21 Red-headed Woodpeckers in the IBA and 11 outside the IBA, giving a total of 32 for the day.

A common view of a Red-headed Woodpecker. Copyright Randy Mooi

Thank You!

Finally, thank you to everyone who took part: Randy, Odette, Garry, Rudolf, Jo, Betsy, Katharine, Kelsey, Pat, Wally, Bonnie, Chris, Jon and Garry.

Species Name	Inside IBA	Outside IBA	TOTAL
Canada Goose	16	2	18
Trumpeter Swan	2	0	2
Wood Duck	2	0	2
Blue-winged Teal	44	6	50
Northern Shoveler	16	0	16
Gadwall	4	7	11
American Wigeon	10	0	10
Mallard	90	14	104
Green-winged Teal	21	0	21
Canvasback	9	0	9
Ring-necked Duck	11	2	13
Bufflehead	11	6	17
Common Goldeneye	5	0	5
duck sp.	131	0	131
Gray Partridge	2	0	2
Sharp-tailed Grouse	1	0	1
Pied-billed Grebe	4	1	5
Red-necked Grebe	4	3	7
Western Grebe	162	0	162
Mourning Dove	21	5	26
Black-billed Cuckoo	1	0	1
Virginia Rail	1	0	1
American Coot	4	0	4
Sandhill Crane	42	7	49
Killdeer	34	6	40
Marbled Godwit	1	0	1
Stilt Sandpiper	30	0	30
Baird’s Sandpiper	8	0	8
Least Sandpiper	1	0	1
Pectoral Sandpiper	3	0	3
Semipalmated Sandpiper	19	0	19
peep sp.	25	0	25
Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher	22	0	22
Wilson’s Snipe	21	3	24
Wilson’s Phalarope	3	0	3
Spotted Sandpiper	5	1	6
Greater Yellowlegs	16	0	16
Willet	3	0	3
Lesser Yellowlegs	18	0	18
Franklin’s Gull	5	0	5
Ring-billed Gull	20	10	30
gull sp.	6	0	6
Black Tern	28	0	28
Forster’s Tern	8	0	8
Common Loon	0	2	2
Double-crested Cormorant	9	0	9
American White Pelican	89	11	100
American Bittern	3	0	3
Great Blue Heron	16	0	16
Great Egret	51	0	51
Black-crowned Night-Heron	1	0	1
Turkey Vulture	3	1	4
Northern Harrier	6	6	12
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1	0	1
Cooper’s Hawk	2	1	3
Bald Eagle	6	1	7
Broad-winged Hawk	0	3	3
Red-tailed Hawk	19	3	22
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	9	3	12
Red-headed Woodpecker	21	11	32
Downy Woodpecker	2	0	2
Hairy Woodpecker	5	0	5
Northern Flicker	16	4	20
American Kestrel	21	11	32
Merlin	2	0	2
Eastern Wood-Pewee	2	0	2
Alder Flycatcher	5	0	5
Least Flycatcher	60	31	91
Eastern Phoebe	3	8	11
Great Crested Flycatcher	5	4	9
Eastern Kingbird	38	10	48
Yellow-throated Vireo	2	0	2
Warbling Vireo	42	5	47
Red-eyed Vireo	17	16	33
Blue Jay	9	5	14
Black-billed Magpie	49	1	50
American Crow	29	33	62
Common Raven	14	15	29
Purple Martin	0	10	10
Tree Swallow	79	1	80
Bank Swallow	4	0	4
Barn Swallow	100	42	142
Cliff Swallow	2	0	2
Black-capped Chickadee	3	0	3
White-breasted Nuthatch	1	0	1
House Wren	24	8	32
Sedge Wren	19	5	24
Marsh Wren	56	10	66
Eastern Bluebird	6	3	9
Veery	7	1	8
Swainson’s Thrush	1	0	1
American Robin	78	25	103
Gray Catbird	12	15	27
Brown Thrasher	8	1	9
European Starling	56	17	73
Cedar Waxwing	13	9	22
American Goldfinch	26	23	49
Chipping Sparrow	0	4	4
Clay-colored Sparrow	67	37	104
White-throated Sparrow	8	5	13
Vesper Sparrow	4	0	4
LeConte’s Sparrow	2	1	3
Nelson’s Sparrow	3	0	3
Savannah Sparrow	75	9	84
Song Sparrow	135	52	187
Swamp Sparrow	27	2	29
Yellow-headed Blackbird	3	0	3
Bobolink	6	0	6
Western Meadowlark	59	14	73
Orchard Oriole	1	0	1
Baltimore Oriole	12	0	12
Red-winged Blackbird	430	159	589
Brown-headed Cowbird	105	13	118
Brewer’s Blackbird	33	11	44
Common Grackle	33	2	35
Black-and-white Warbler	0	1	1
Common Yellowthroat	72	21	93
American Redstart	2	2	4
Yellow Warbler	36	6	42
Chestnut-sided Warbler	6	0	6
Rose-breasted Grosbeak	5	1	6
House Sparrow	10	0	10
TOTAL NUMBER BIRDS	3078	765	3843
TOTAL NUMBER SPECIES	114	67	119

We recently spent the morning with volunteers searching for Red-Headed Woodpeckers in the North, East and West Shoal Lakes IBA. Kelsey Bell, our Summer Assistant, recaps the day.

Rain, rain and more rain! That was how the day started out the morning of July 14^th, 2019, when volunteers from Winnipeg, Gimli and beyond were getting ready to head to North, West and East Shoal Lakes IBA (Woodlands, MB) in search of Red-Headed Woodpeckers. Despite the turbulent start to the morning, 15 dedicated volunteers still made the trek to their sites in the hopes of detecting these iconic species.

Red-Headed Woodpeckers are listed as a Threatened species in Manitoba as well as across the nation.  The presence of Red-Headed Woodpeckers is strongly associated with grazed woodlots containing standing snags and dead limbs, in areas such as treed cattle yards. The habitat surrounding the lakes within the Shoal Lakes IBA area is mostly made up of mixed aspen woodlots and cattle pasture, making it ideal for Red-Headed Woodpeckers.

 

As the thunderstorm and rain subsided for the day, we were treated to a flurry of bird activity. It was hard to drive more than 200m without having to stop to record a whole new list of species. My group took care of the areas to the South and Southwest end of the lakes for the morning survey. Following lunch, we slowly birded our way back to Winnipeg along the East side of the lakes. The diversity in the area was incredible! By the end of the day, we had a total of 80 species. Great Egrets were present in high numbers, there seemed to be a group of them around every corner. A Black-Crowned Night Heron and two American Bitterns were seen flying over, as well as numerous American White Pelican’s. Closer to the shores of the lake we detected Sedge Wrens, Le Conte’s Sparrow, Nelson’s Sparrow and of course a ton of Red-Winged Blackbirds. It was a pleasant sight when we spotted large numbers of Western Grebe’s through the scope, many with babies on their backs.

At the end of it all, we had a total of 5 species of woodpecker for the day, including, of course, Red-Headed Woodpeckers. Every group detected at least one-pair of Red-Headed Woodpeckers, for a total of at least 23 individuals, likely a few more.

Despite the delayed start due to poor weather conditions, it was a very successful day! Thank you to everyone who got up at the crack of dawn to brave the weather and make the trip! Each observation is helping contribute to the identification of critical habitat for Red-Headed Woodpeckers in Manitoba.

Come join the Manitoba Important Bird Area Program for our fall weed pull at the Riverton Sandy Bar IBA on Saturday July 20th.

We will be pulling weeds to make space for the rare and elusive Piping Plover, a species once common in this IBA, but not seen for a number of years. The encroaching vegetation has significantly reduced habitat for this and other breeding species, and the IBA Program and our caretaker, Joanne Smith, are determined to do something to rectify this situation.

Meeting: We will meet at 7:45 in the parking lot for coffee, juice and maybe a few baked goodies, and at 8:15am we will head up to our weeding spot near the tip of the sandbar. Click here for the location of the Riverton Sandy Bar Parking lot.

Things to bring: Please bring:

– Weather appropriate clothing and footwear

– Gardening gloves if you have them

– Binoculars

– Water

– a bagged lunch

– sunscreen

– a hat

– rain jacket if required

We will stay out until midday.

More info here

Please note that there is no outhouse at this parking lot.  Closest bathrooms will be in the town of Riverton.

If you are interested in coming, please email Lynnea at assistant.manitobaiba@gmail.com