As COVID-19 numbers stay low, and the province slowly opens up the Manitoba IBA program is also ready to hold events with volunteers again! We are limiting our event capacity and continuing to follow our same COVID-19 protocols from last year (social distancing, no carpooling outside your “bubble” and mandatory masks) but we are excited to see you all again!

Hello Everyone!

I am Ariel, one of Manitoba IBA’s Summer students for 2021. This past spring, our coordinator Amanda and I, as well as some of our wonderful volunteers have been visiting some of our IBAS to survey for shorebirds.

The protocol that we follow is one of our own, based heavily on the International Shorebird survey by Manomet, but fitted to the specific characteristics of Manitoba. The original protocol includes elements specific to coastal shoreline, which obviously doesn’t work for us in southern Manitoba! There are 4 survey sites that were covered throughout the spring shorebird monitoring. These sites are Whitewater Lake, Oak Hammock Marsh, Shoal Lakes IBA and Oak/Plum Lakes. Oak Hammock Marsh and the Shoal Lakes IBA routes are new this year! Theses sites have multiple routes to monitor and are normally surveyed 3 times in the spring and 3 times in the fall. Below you will find the results of our surveys for the Spring 2021 season. Note that while multiple species are observed and recorded under the ISS protocol during surveys, only shorebirds are included in the data.  

New this year are several photos sites that we have set up in the IBAs. The purpose of these photo sites is to take a photo and share it with us so that we may compare photos of the site each year. Sites that are chosen are usually marked with something distinct, such as a road sign.

A big thank you to Gillian, Bonnie, Tammi, and Mike, our lovely volunteers who were a big help this year in going out and monitoring our IBAs!  

Spring 2021 Oak Hammock Marsh

Oak hammock Marsh has 3 routes and was monitored several times in May partially during shorebird peak season. A total of 18 species were identified by volunteers and the IBA Program. Routes included the front pond – which as you may know is managed for shorebirds by the staff at the Marsh. One of the routes also includes our shorebirds scrape constructed last autumn. Route 2 was visited four times, Route 1 as visited twice and route 3 was visited three times. The Shorebird Scrape was done 3 times.

2021 Spring Season Oak Hammock Marsh
Species	Total # of Individuals	Proportion of Individuals (%)
American Avocet	9	3
Baird’s Sandpiper	4	1
Black-bellied Plover	2	1
Dunlin	32	9
Killdeer	19	6
Least Sandpiper	41	12
Lesser Yellowlegs	4	1
Long Billed Dowitcher	3	0.87
Marbled Godwit	15	4.37
Red Necked-phalarope	51	14.87
Ruddy Turnstone	16	4.66
Semi plamated plover	22	6.41
Short billed dowithcer	4	1.17
Spotted Sandpiper	6	1.75
Stilt Sandpiper	2	0.58
White rumper Sandpiper	2	0.58
Willet	7	2.04
Wilson’s Phalarope	104	30.32
Total	343	100
Total # of species	18

Spring 2021 Oak/Plum Lakes

Oak and Plum lakes has 3 routes that were each monitored once. Due to the drought weather this spring, many of the areas close to the roads had dried out or moved farther back, making identification difficult at times. A total of 8 species were identified.

2021 Spring Season Oak/Plum Lakes
Species	Total # of Individuals	Proportion of Individuals (%)
American Avocet	25	18
Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs	73	53
Killdeer	4	3
Lesser Yellowlegs	2	1
Pectoral Sandpiper	8	6
Short billed?Long billed dowwitcher	15	11
Willet	7	5
Wilson’s Phalarope	4	2.90
Total	138	100
Total # of species	8

Really low water levels at the ISS site along the northern tip of Grande Clairiere Road at Oak Lake. Normally the water goes all the way (and sometimes covers) the rock causeway seen at the end of the video. No wonder the shorebirds are so far out!

Spring 2021 Shoal Lake

North and South Shoal Lakes cover a larger area. There are 4 routes around the lakes, plus the water access near the Erinview campground. They were surveyed 25 times between April and June. Route 1 was surveyed five times, route 2 was surveyed eight times, route 3 was surveyed six times and route 4 was surveyed four times. The Campground was surveyed twice. A total of 24 species were identified. Shoal Lakes was my personal favorite IBA to survey as it was common to see a variety of other birds, such as several species of duck, pelicans, birds of prey and even a Red Headed Woodpecker, one of our focus species this year. Shoal Lakes was another area that was very clearly affected by the drought this year, with many normally suitable spots to survey having been dried out and pushed back farther from the road.

2021 Spring Season Shoal Lakes
Species	Total # of Individuals	Proportion of Individuals (%)
American Avocet	51	6
American Woodcock	1	0
Bairds Sandpiper	16	2
Dunlin	9	1
Greater Yellowlegs	46	5
Greater/lesser Yellowlegs	1	0
Hudsonian Godwit	1	0
Killdeer	114	13.59
Least Sandpiper	172	20.50
Lesser Yellowlegs	101	12.04
Long billed Dowitcher	7	0.83
Marbled Godwit	29	3.46
Pectoral Sandpiper	11	1.31
peep sp.	24	2.86
Semipalamated Plover	108	12.87
Semipalamated sandpiper	6	0.72
Short billed dowitcher	14	1.67
Short billed/long billed dowitcher	11	1.31
Solitary Sandpiper	3	0.36
Spotted Sandpiper	15	1.79
White rumped sandpiper	5	0.60
Willet	37	4.41
Wilson’s phalarope	48	5.72
Wilson’s snipe	9	1.07
Total	839	100
Total # of species	24

Spring 2021 Whitewater Lake

Whitewater Lake was surveyed 23 times over the course of the season. There are 7 routes in total on the east and west side of the lake. For the west side of the lake, route 1 was surveyed three times, route 2 was surveyed twice and route 3 was surveyed five times. For the East side of the lake, route 1 was surveyed four times and route 2 was surveyed once. Sexton’s point was surveyed eight times. While the graph shows large numbers of certain birds, volunteers reported that the water around the lake was low, and When Amanda and I went to set up photo sites, we noticed the same. The dry weather has no doubt affected the IBA’s this year. A total of 23 species were recorded with a staggering 23,424 individuals counted. A large number of these shorebirds were recorded by Gillian on May 16th when huge numbers of shorebirds were counted along the ISS routes.

2021 Spring Season Shoal Lakes
Species	Total # of Individuals	Proportion of Individuals (%)
American Avocet	604	3
American Golden-Plover	8	0
Bairds Sandpiper	416	2
Blackbellied plover	116	0
Dunlin	1	0
Greater Yellowlegs	6	0
Hudsonian Godwit	7	0.03
Killdeer	45	0.19
Least Sandpiper	1485	6.39
Lesser Yellowlegs	81	0.35
Marbled Godwit	111	0.48
Pectoral Sandpiper	18706	80.48
Red necked Phalarope	196	0.84
Semipalamated Plover	140	0.60
Semipalamated sandpiper	379	1.63
Short billed Dowitcher	12	0.05
Short billed/long billed Dowitcher	55	0.24
Spotted Sandpiper	1	0.00
Stilt Sandpiper	189	0.81
Upland Sandpiper	5	0.02
White Rumped Sandpiper	328	1.41
Willet	62	0.27
Wilson’s Phalarope	289	1.24
Total	23242	100
Total # of species	23

As we can see by the graph, most species have relatively high counts but the Pectoral Sandpiper’s count towers over the rest at 18,706!

Future ISS Surveys

If you are interested in volunteering for International Shorebird surveys or about shorebird identification, please contact Amanda at iba@naturemanitoba.ca for more information as well as tools to get you started. You do not have to commit to running all sites at a location – there may even be a route or two that you follow on your normal birding trips! We are also able to provide mentoring for shorebird ID and/or lend out spotting scopes if needed. The fall ISS survey period starts on July 11th and runs until October 25th.