For our second event southwestern Manitoba, we set out with a small group of volunteers on the morning of Sunday, June 19th for our first grassland bird blitz in 3 years. We birded the Southwestern Manitoba Mixed Grass Prairie IBA from dawn to high noon in search of grassland Species at Risk.

For the Grassland Survey, we were 4 groups covering 4 different areas of the IBA. All groups were on the road by 5:30 am, the earlier the better for grassland birds. Below is a map of the areas in which each group was assigned.

Group 2, which was comprised of Jackie and I, covered the region just southeast of Melita. The songbirds on our route were loud in the morning and easily identifiable by both sight and ear. The only target species we were able to identify was the Bobolink, but we saw a number of other interesting birds including a Say’s Phoebe, which Jackie was surprised to see. I was pleased to see my first Horned Lark. In addition to the bird species, we also came upon a group of six jackrabbits, which I initially misidentified as a small gathering of Canada Geese from afar.

Amanda was alone as Group 4 and covered the Poverty Plains area. She identified Grasshopper Sparrows and Baird’s Sparrows from our target species. While on route, she encountered a large stick nest up in a tree. Initially she could not identify the two young raptors in the nest due to the distance. After looking closely at the photo afterwards realized they were Ferruginous Hawks, which is very exciting as they are only found in the southwest and are uncommon.

It didn’t take long for the prairie to heat up and by 9:00 am, the land had become relatively quiet. My partner headed home early and I later joined with Amanda for the second half of the morning, and we were pleased to identify more of our target species, including Grasshopper Sparrows, Bobolinks, and a Loggerhead Shrike! Seeing the Loggerhead Shrike was a first for both of us. We had heard one the day before on our community grassland bird walk near Melita, but had not seen it. Amanda had another interesting find for us was an unknown male and female songbird perched on a fence. After flipping through our bird guide, we identified the pair as Orchard Orioles. By the end of the morning, it had become very hot and the only birds we were seeing and hearing were Brown-headed Cowbirds, so we decided to wrap up and head back to Melita.

Group 3 was comprised of Melanie and Katharine. They birded the area southwest of Melita and along the Saskatchewan border. From our target species, they were able to identify Grasshopper Sparrows, Bobolinks, a Loggerhead Shrike and Sprague’s Pipit. Origianlly they also had a photo of a mystery bird on a wire – but a photo came through once again – it was a female Chestnut-collared Longspur. Much trickier to identify than the flashy males! Besides those, some of the other interesting species to note were Horned Larks, a Red-tailed Hawk and Sandhill Cranes.

Group 1, Ken and Colleen, birded closer to Melita itself and including in the Broomhill and Blind Souris areas. For our target species, they observed Bobolinks, Grasshopper Sparrows and the Sprague’s Pipit. They also identified two Ferruginous Hawks. Other interesting species that they identified was a White-faced Ibis, Green-winged Teal and a Broad-winged Hawk.

After around 6 hours of birding, we met up at the Melita Chicken Chef for lunch and discussed what we had seen over much needed glasses of water and cups of coffee (and air conditioning). After lunch we were on our way home, just in time to avoid some wild weather and tornado warnings!

We want to thank our volunteers Katharine, Colleen, Ken, Melanie and Jackie for joining us in the southwest for our Grassland Bird Blitz! A complete table with all the species observed by each group and some additional images can be found below.

For our target grassland species at risk we had 1 Chestnut-collared Longspurs, 4 Ferruginous Hawks, 2 Baird’s Sparrows, 4 Loggerhead Shrikes, 14 Bobolinks, at 3 Sprague’s Pipits. We also had 11 Grasshopper Sparrows, which are not currently a Species at Risk, but whose numbers are declining. In total we counted 80 species and 1472 individuals.

Species	Count
American Bittern	2
American Coot	2
American Crow	6
American Goldfinch	3
American Robin	6
American Wigeon	X
Baird’s Sparrow	2
Baltimore Oriole	1
Barn Swallow	19
Black Tern	5
Black-billed Magpie	4
Blue-winged Teal	32
Bobolink	14
Brewer’s Blackbird	12
Brown Thrasher	4
Brown-headed Cowbird	133
Buteo sp.	1
Cedar Waxwing	6
Chestnut-colored Longspur	1
Clay-colored Sparrow	67
Cliff Swallow	26
Common Grackle	4
Common Yellowthroat	19
Double-crested Cormorant	X
Eastern Kingbird	71
Ferruginous Hawk	4
Franklin’s Gull	9
Gadwall	6
Grasshopper Sparrow	11
Gray Catbird	2
Green-winged Teal	1
Great Blue Heron	1
Hairy Woodpecker	1
Horned Lark	10
House Sparrow	18
House Wren	27
Killdeer	14
Least Flycatcher	16
Lesser Yellowlegs	1
Loggerhead Shrike	4
Mallard	31
Marbled Godwit	8
Marsh Wren	1
Mourning Dove	44
Northern Flicker	1
Northern Harrier	2
Northern Pintail	18
Northern Shoveler	20
Orchard Oriole	2
Redhead	6
Red-tailed Hawk	4
Red-wing Blackbird	369
Ring-billed Gull	1
Ring-necked Pheasant	1
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)	3
Ruddy Duck	1
Sandhill Crane	6
Say’s Phoebe	1
Sedge Wren	10
Sharp-tailed Grouse	2
Shorebird sp.	2
Snow Goose	X
Sprague’s Pipit	3
Song Sparrow	4
Sora	13
Swainson’s Hawk	2
Tree Swallow	1
Upland Sandpiper	24
Vesper Sparrow	27
Warbling Vireo	5
Western Kingbird	7
Western Meadowlark	104
White-faced Ibis	X
Willet	11
Wilson’s Phalarope	8
Wilson’s Snipe	24
Yellow Warbler	17
Yellow-headed Blackbird	76
Savannah Sparrow	46
Grand total	1472

Over the weekend, Amanda and I traveled to the southwest to visit the Southwestern Mixed Grass Prairie IBA. While there, we held two events, a bird walk through the Gerald W. Malaher Wildlife Management Area, and an early morning grassland bird blitz the next day. It was a scorcher in the Banana Belt that weekend but we still managed to see some really interesting birds, many of which can only be found in that part of the province!

The weekend began for us with the long drive down on Friday from Winnipeg to Melita. We spent the afternoon scoping out the Gerald W. Malaher Wildlife Management Area (WMA), the site of our bird walk the next day, while discussing birds we might see that weekend. We were particularly interested in the grassland birds. We were excited to hear a Loggerhead Shrike, but did not see it. We retired for the evening to a local farmhouse with a ton of character, exhausted from the drive.

Saturday morning we made our way back to the WMA for our event. We were a small group that morning, and the wind was strong, but luckily the WMA is partially grassland and partially forested habitat, so we had some protection! We were lucky enough to have participants who were knowledgeable in butterflies and plants so the walk ended up being a morning full of learning about all things nature. Our first observation was Yellow Warblers, whose call of “sweet, sweet, I’m so sweet” we described to the group and using our guidebook to show their lovely yellow coloring. As we followed the shorter loop of the WMA, we saw variety of birds including Mourning Doves, Redheads, Cedar Waxwings and more. We were delighted to see Monarch Butterflies, and were surrounded by what must have been thousands of Dragonflies, leaving mosquitos nowhere to be found. At the end of our walk we heard a Ring-neck Pheasant call. The pheasant is a game bird introduced into the southwest from Asia. One of our participants, Daniel, informed us that he often found them in ditches near the WMA. After the walk had finished myself, Amanda and Sandy hurried off to try and find it. We had a brief moment of possible success – turns out it was a “piece of metal on a fence” bird. The rare cousin of the “leaf bird” and the “garbage bird” that like to play tricks on birders. We ended up unsuccessful.

Thank you again to the group who joined us for our bird walk! We identified 15 different species of birds, and 57 individuals. The full lists of birds identified during the walk can be found below.

Species	Count
Blue-winged Teal	1
Redhead	2
Ring-necked Pheasant	1
Mourning Dove	4
American White Pelican	7
Least Flycatcher	3
Eastern Kingbird	3
Loggerhead Shrike	1
House Wren	5
Cedar Waxwing	14
Clay-colored Sparrow	3
Red-winged Blackbird	4
Brown-headed Cowbird	2
Common Yellowthroat	1
Yellow Warbler	6

-Ariel Desrocher

On June 4th the Manitoba IBA Program held our first blitz of the 2022 season! After a spring of rocky weather we ended up with a great day to observe a wide variety of birds.

We had five groups of volunteers head out to Whitewater Lake to start birding around 8:30 am and finish up with lunch at Sexton’s Point at 12:30 pm. If you think back to the end of May and beginning of June, we had been receiving a lot of rain. So while the weather was great, we had to be somewhat careful of road conditions, especially on the dirt roads. Probably unsurprising to everyone, the water levels at Whitewater Lake were quite high compared to last year (last year was unusually dry). We were hoping that would help to increase the number of birds we would see on our blitz!

An Upland Sandpiper (left) and Grey Partridge (right). Photos by Randy Mooi.

Normally we would head out to a Whitewater Blitz concentrating on shorebirds. During pre-blitz scouting and International Shorebird Surveys we were expecting shorebirds to be thin on the ground this year (not just at Whitewater Lake, but this pattern was seen across southern Manitoba). We are not entirely sure why this has happened, but we had a few hypotheses. Perhaps this was due to a late arrival with our unseasonably cold conditions? Perhaps it was due large amount of water across the landscape providing a lot of habitat, and meaning the shorebirds were more spread out this year? For that reason while we did run routes suitable for shorebirds, we were also recording a wider variety of species.

Wilson’s Phalaropes. In contrast to most other birds, the female Wilson Phalarope is more colourful than the male. Photo by Josh Dewitt.

The south side of the lake was the domain of Group 1. This included Randy and Odette Mooi making their way from the east side of the south end of the lake, and Colin Blyth making his way from the west side of the south end of the lake. The two groups met in the middle of the south side.

Randy and Odette saw a nice variety of shorebirds and other species as well. Near the beginning of their morning they picked out our only Black-crowned Night Heron, Great Crested Flycatcher, Orchard Oriole and Belted Kingfisher of the day. They also counted 13 Bobolink over the course of their morning. They also had relatively high counts (for the day) of White-rumped Sandpipers (200+), Pectoral Sandpipers (30), Sanderling (51), and Semipalmated Sandpiper (40).

On the west side of the lake Group 2, composed of Gillian Richards, Duane Diehl, and Tom and Renee Wills. Their area included west of the lake, south of road 20N and the area nearby to Deloraine. This included the western International Shorebird Survey routes. This group saw a lot of large numbers of our shorebirds on their first ISS including 39 Semipalmated Sandpipers, 75 White-rumped Sandpipers, 17 American Avocets and 4 Stilt Sandpipers. The second ISS route also netted them a good variety of shorebirds, but in smaller numbers. They saw Killdeer, Stilt Sandpipers, Sanderling, Baird’s Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Semipalmated Sandpiper, Wilson’s Phalarope, Red-necked Phalarope and Spotted Sandpiper. They also saw a Red-headed Woodpecker – not often a species associated with Whitewater Lake.

Group 2 was a bit late joining up with us for lunch, but with good reason! They wanted to finish up the 3rd of the ISS routes in the west. The highlight here was not a shorebird, but a single Greater White-fronted Goose and a White-faced Ibis, among other birds.

The north side of the lake was the domain of Mike Karakas and Tami Reynolds. They surveyed all along the road that runs along the north (Highway 48 and mile road 20N). Some highlights from Mike and Tami include a nice variety of shorebirds including 31 Black-bellied Plovers, 3 Ruddy Turnstones, 3 Semi-palmated Sandpipers and a Dunlin. These species were on a marshy area on the way out to their survey site (my group later stopped here too, don’t worry, we didn’t double count!).

Despite it being a bit late in the year (perhaps because of our weather) Mike and Tami also counted 106 Snow Geese in both the white and blue colour morphs. They also picked up a Bobolink, Grey Partridge, and Eastern Towhee on the first part of their route. On the second part of their route interesting finds were 15 Stilt Sandpipers, a few more Snow Geese, and four Ruddy Ducks. As they arrived in the western portion of their route Mike and Tami saw a further four Bobolinks, two Black Terns and fair numbers of White-rumped (31) and Baird’s Sandpipers (45). They also had a Canada Jay – not the habitat I typically think of!

Myself, Josh Dewitt, Melanie Rose and Laura met up in Boissevain and surveyed the area on the east side of the lake, largely following the three International Shorebird Survey routes. Our area included both walking and car birding. The dirt tracks on our side of the IBA were luckily all dried up, and the small rental car that replaced the SUV I was supposed to have handled the uneven roads like a champ. At our first stop we actually ran into Mike and Tami who had stopped at a particularly lucrative wetland area on their way out to their route. We were able to spot three Red Knots blending into the stubble at the far side of the wetland. It turns out that Red Knots haven’t been seen at Whitewater Lake for several years, and it lead to several people going back to this spot after lunch to try and spot them again (with success!). At the same spot we also picked up 30 Baird’s Sandpipers and 40 Least Sandpipers.

Along the first ISS route we picked up 85 Semipalmated Sandpiper and a Bobolink. For our second ISS route the highlight was a group of 35 Baird’s Sandpipers. Our last ISS route yield a group of 60 peeps who flew around and eventually landed on a mud flat way too far out for identification with scopes, much to our frustration. Luckily we got to see a few charismatic birds to make up for it including two American Avocet, three Northern Pintails, a Great Egret and a Baltimore Oriole.

After all had gathered at Sexton’s Point were did a bit more birding as we ate our sandwiches. Here we spotted a further 93 Snow Geese out on Sexton’s Island, two Ruddy Turnstones, as well as two Sanderlings. The Sanderlings are an interesting species. For most shorebirds the breeding plumage is the easier plumage for identification, but for Sanderlings their non-breeding plumage is much more unique. These individuals were in their breeding plumage, so there was bit of debate before this ID was settled on with confidence.

All in all, we saw 105 species, with over 3000 individual birds counted. The most numerous species was the White-rumped sandpiper with 325+ individuals counted (although not everyone counted each individual Red-winged Blackbird, so they may have had the sandpipers beat). Thank you everyone for a great day out at Whitewater Lake!

Full bird list for June 4th at Whitewater Lake:

Species	Count
Snow Goose	209
Canada Goose	137
Blue-winged Teal	122
Northern Shoveler	153
Mallard	101
Gadwall	67
Northern Pintail	27
Ruddy Duck	29
Lesser Scaup	6
Black-crowned Night Heron	1
American Avocet	46
Black-bellied Plover	36
Killdeer	32
Ruddy Turnstone	7
Dunlin	10
Semipalmated Sandpiper	130
Wilson’s Phalarope	51
Willet	25
Red-Winged Blackbird	249+
Yellow-headed blackbird	58
Brown-headed Cowbird	69
Green Winged Teal	2
Canvasback	38
Redhead	20
Hooded Merganser	3
Eared Grebe	23
Mourning Dove	29
Sora	15
American Coot	21
Stilt Sandpiper	22
Sanderling	55
White-rumped Sandpiper	325+
Pectoral Sandpiper	40
Shorebird sp.	10
Black Tern	4
Double-crested Cormorant	3
American White Pelican	34
Bald Eagle	1
Western Kingbird	6
Eastern Kingbird	30
Horned Lark	19
Barn Swallow	24
House Sparrow	3
Vesper Sparrow	2
Savannah Sparrow	43
Song Sparrow	8
Clay-colored Sparrow	16
Common Grackle	58
Baird’s Sandpiper	117
Red Knot	3
European Starling	7
American Robin	10
Common Yellowthroat	12
Yellow Warbler	16
Grey Partridge	1
Sharp Tailed Grouse	4
Western Grebe	2
Rock Pigeon	2
Upland Sandpiper	7
Wilson’s Snipe	6
Northern Harrier	3
Swainson’s Hawk	1
Least Flycatcher	6
Great Crested Flycatcher	1
Common Raven	5
Sedge Wren	5
House Wren	2
Eastern Towhee	1
Bobolink	24
Baltimore Oriole	3
Orchard Oriole	3
Brewers Blackbird	41
Western Meadowlark	44
Peep sp.	66
Hawk sp.	1
Swamp Sparrow	1
Sandhill Crane	54
Semipalmated Plover	1
Marbled Godwit	10
Franklin’s Gull	44
Ring-billed Gull	77
Ring-necked Duck	1
Great Egret	2
Red-necked Phalarope	13
Spotted Sandpiper	2
Red-headed Woodpecker	1
Gray Catbird	1
Canada Jay	1
Forster’s Tern	2
Red-eyed Vireo	1
Warbling Vireo	1
Northern Flicker	1
Belted Kingfisher	1
Marsh Wren	3
Black-billed Magpie	1
Northern Flicker	1
Ferruginous Hawk	2
Blue Jay	1
Eastern Phoebe	2
Nelson’s Sparrow	1
Brown Thrasher	2
Cedar waxwing	1
Lesser Scaup	3
Grasshopper Sparrow	4
Total Species Identified	105

We have two opportunities coming up to monitor for the Endangered Red-headed woodpecker in Manitoba.

North, East and West Shoal Lakes IBA – Red-headed Woodpecker Blitz

This weekend we are holding our blitz for this species at North, East and West Shoal Lakes IBA. The blitz is taking place on Saturday, July 9th, 2022 starting at 7:00am. We are still looking for volunteers. If you are interested please email iba@naturemanitoba.ca. Carpooling may be able to be arranged and lunch will be provided at noon.

NEW! Oak Lake Plum Lake – Red-headed Woodpecker Blitz

Not to be left out, we will also be blitzing for Red-headed Woodpeckers in Oak Lakes/ Plum Lakes IBA in southwestern Manitoba. The blitz will take place on Saturday, July 23rd starting at 8:00am. If you are interested please email iba@naturemanitoba.ca. Carpooling may be able to be arranged and snacks and refreshments will be provided.