Callie Bowman has been working as a data reviewer for Christian Artuso since the beginning of July 2015 thanks to a Science Horizons grant (a federal youth employment grant that gives recent grads work experience in their field of interest). During the summer, she assisted with field work looking at avian malaria in Golden-winged Warblers for Chelsea Enslow, a Masters student from the University of Manitoba. Since then, she has assisted Christian, gaining experience in grant writing, database management, bird surveys and preparing various publications. Here Callie blogs about a meeting she attended earlier this week organised by Nature Conservancy of Canada on the future of Manitoba’s Mixed Grass Prairies.

On Wednesday, October 28, 2015, at the crack of dawn (well actually before dawn), Christian Artuso and I, along with some other folks from the Wildlife Branch of Manitoba Conservation headed off for Melita for the day.  The Nature Conservancy of Canada had organized a Conservation Workshop, aimed at bringing together knowledge and expertise from various groups, organizations and locals who live and work in the Mixed-grass Prairie of the West Souris region.  Luckily the long drive was broken up by a quick stop in Brandon to have breakfast but after that, it was straight on to Melita.

There were roughly 30 people in attendance, representing a wide range of groups including various governmental organizations, NGOs, local Conservation Districts and landowners.  The mix allowed for great conversations, bringing to light new perspectives from lots of different interested parties.

The morning started with some presentations about NCC and specifically what they are doing in the West Souris region, followed by a presentation by Christian about the state of prairie birds in the area.  Unfortunately (as we probably all know), the presentations on the sad state of the mixed-grass prairie and grassland birds in the area left everyone ready to swing in to planning action to come up with ideas of how combat these declines!

Christian presenting his talk on grassland birds. Photo taken by Cary Hamel of NCC (@caryhamel)

The afternoon involved a lot of discussion-based activities in small groups.  In my group, we had representation from NCC, Environment Canada, Manitoba Conservation, local Conservation Districts, a local farmer and the local PFRA. We discussed topics such as the pros and cons to economic and energy development in the area, barriers to conservation and strategies moving forward.  The afternoon was concluded with a large group discussion, summarizing what each group had come up with.

As someone who was totally unfamiliar with this ecosystem before arriving at the workshop, I gained a lot of valuable information about the issues that face the Mixed-grass Prairie and possible ways to conserve what we have left for the future.  It was especially valuable having so many parties represented because it allowed for everyone to share knowledge and perspectives from groups who don’t always have the change to sit down and talk to one another. By the end of the day, it seemed everyone was a little more optimistic about what can be done to protect the habitat and species that live there.  One of the continued solutions that kept coming up throughout the afternoon was education (unsurprisingly); all types of education, ranging from programs at local schools, to training farmers on best practices to aid conservation, to signs along roads to educate visitors on important species or habitats in the area.  Lots of positive strategies and lots of excitement!

Then it was home to Winnipeg. Despite it being a long, 14+ hour day, I am very grateful for the opportunity to attend and participate in such an informative and positive day!

Long gone on migration now, the Sprague’s Pipit is one of the most threatened birds of the Mixed-grass Prairie. Hopefully the outcomes from discussions on Wednesday will lead to a more positive future for birds such as this. Photo copyright Christian Artuso (http://artusophotos.com/)

For anyone who has ever visited the great open grasslands of Africa or who cares about the critical role played by scavengers as the great ecosystem cleaners, today has been a wake-up call. IUCN have published their latest Red List of species threatened with extinction and the headlines are sober reading for conservationists:

’24 bird species are now classified as having a higher risk of extinction (either Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered) in the 2015 Red List update of birds, with seven species being upgraded to Critically Endangered. Another 16 bird species have seen their status change from Least Concern (the lowest level of threat) to Near Threatened. 23 species have been downgraded to lower threat categories.’

Back to the vultures, and now 4 of African species are listed as ‘Critically Endangered’ and 2 species as ‘Endangered’. Having seen at least 4 of these species (need to check my notes but Egyptian, White-backed, Lappet-faced and Ruppels Griffon are certainly there), this really is a reality check. The reasons for this terrible state of affairs are varied and rather than state them here, I will leave that up to an excellent guest blog piece by Chris Bowden, RSPB’s Globally Threatened Species Officer, on Mark Avery’s blog (Mark is the ex-RSPB Director of Conservation).

As a native Brit, the new list has now highlighted declines in some of the most iconic species in the UK. Well, iconic in my view anyway! Population declines of farmland and cliff-nesting seabirds were certainly two pressing (and depressing) priorities, rising up the conservation agenda. Familiar species like the Atlantic Puffin, Razorbill, Eurasian Oystercatcher and Northern Lapwing had their conservation status uplisted, with puffin ‘Vulnerable’ to extinction. The lesser-known (but bird of the year in New Zealand, 2015) Bar-tailed Godwit is also included. Atlantic Puffin was one of the 10 species shortlisted in a recent vote for the National Bird of Great Britain, and although it came tenth (I voted for it), it is still a much-loved species. Just not as loved as the plain garden Robin apparently! The causes of these declines are going to be different for all these species, yet at the root of all of them are the impacts of people on the natural environment.

Northern Lapwings are declining in Europe due to agricultural changes. Photo copyright Tim Poole

There were 3 other species present in the UK on the list which should be of special interest to people in Manitoba. These are:

1. Horned Grebe (known as Slavonian Grebe in the UK) (IUCN – Vulnerable)
2. Common Eider (IUCN – Near threatened)
3. Red Knot (IUCN – Near threatened)

Of these species, the Horned Grebe and Common Eider both breed in Manitoba.

Horned Grebe has not previously been recognised as a trigger species for any of Manitoba’s IBAs but with this new Red Listing, one or two of our IBAs may now be considered globally important. Birdlife International have identified that this species is undergoing rapid declines due to forestry operations, human disturbance, fluctuating water levels in lakes and introduction of Rainbow Trout. In fact the decline in North America has been -75.9% over 40 years. According to the Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas, Horned Grebe breed across Manitoba but concentrate in a few areas, including in and around the southwestern IBAs and the Saskatchewan River Delta IBA. For most birders, Horned Grebe are more regularly recorded on passage, including recently at North, West and Eastern Shoal Lakes IBA (and in the fall near my house in Winnipeg).

Horned Grebe in winter plumage at North, West and East Shoal Lakes IBA. copyright Garry Budyk

Much like another sea duck, the Long-tailed Duck, the Common Eider is not considered endangered in Canada. According to Birdlife International, the recent uplisting to ‘Near-threatened’ is due to slight declines in the European population (>40% over three generations). Here in Manitoba we have the Hudson’s Bay subspecies (c. 6% of the global population) which breed in coastal areas including pools and lagoons in the far north of the province. Although previously considered a trigger species in any of Manitoba’s IBAs, the best place for viewing them is within the Churchill and Vicinity IBA. Indeed, our very own Bonnie Chartier recorded 125 during a trip in June this year. Another IBA with records on eBird for this species is Seal River Estuary IBA, north of Churchill.

Common Eider Ducks on Hudsons Bay. Note the dimorphism between male and female. Photo by Christian Artuso

Our final species is the Red Knot. The ‘rufa’ subspecies in North America was already considered as threatened but today we learn that the entire species is now globally ‘Near threatened’. Birdlife International justify the new status as ‘two subpopulations use the East Asian-Australasian Flyway and have experienced significant declines owing to loss of habitat in the Yellow Sea’. They also acknowledge declines in other subpopulations including our own. Red knot do not breed in Manitoba, yet they are often recorded on passage. Again, Churchill and Vicinity IBA is the most important place in Manitoba for this species (3500 were recorded in spring 1974, continental important numbers). Other sites where Red Knot were recorded in 2015 include Riverton Sandy Bar IBA, Whitewater Lake IBA and Delta Marsh IBA.

Red Knots in breeding plumage photographed at Chalet Beach in Netley-Libau Marsh IBA in 2004. Photo copyright, Christian Artuso

It is not all bad news. Hidden away in the gloom are some conservation success stories, such as the Audouin’s Gull. But the implications are there to see. IBAs are only likely to become more important in the future for declining species of bird, and careful stewardship of Manitoba’s IBAs will be our contribution to a global program of site conservation.

On Saturday October 3rd we returned to the scene of our first fall bird blitz, deciding to give it another go! The first blitz was a great success revealing healthy numbers of birds and a good diversity of species. If you have not read the blog why not take a look here. Tim Poole gives us the lowdown on a good morning out.

Big sky over Erinview on the morning of the blitz. Photo copyright Jo Swartz

Having arrived at the IBA on the 29th August in thick mist, I have to confess to being slightly apprehensive at what might greet us. Fortunately we had nothing to worry about. We were greeted by clear skies, even though the outside temperature was 1 degree celsius. This time I had decided to bring some support along in the shape of Frank and Jacqui Machovec and Callie Bowman.

Our team birding away. Photo copyright Christian Artuso

Our first job was to visit a spot south of West Shoal Lake where Jo, Liis and Betsy had counted in August. I had decided an 8am start should be ok. Unfortunately the birds had other ideas and large flocks of Canada Geese were on the move as we drove towards the count point. Not deterred, we counted the geese from the car. Beforehand we came up with a counting plan. Jacqui was responsible for recording non-water birds, Callie recorded waterbirds, Frank drove and I yelled out numbers of birds from the front seat while the others desperately tried to make sense of the nonsensical gibberish emanating from my mouth. Arriving at the first spot, we counted a plethora of waterbirds moving out of the lake area including over 2000 Canada Geese. This area seems so key for waterfowl that next time we will post someone here from first light to count geese leaving. It is obviously important to continue to learn how to improve things as we go along.

Open wetlands like this are great for roosting waterfowl. Photo copyright Garry Budyk

After completing our count, we headed towards our main area for the morning, Bluff Road between North and West Shoal Lakes. This area had been absolutely teeming with waterbirds last time and given the time of year, I was expecting good numbers today. The first sign that it might not work out the way I hoped were the 2 cars parked halfway down the road. As we exited our car, a couple of guys headed towards us on quad bikes with their hunting gear. Hmm, lesson number 2, don’t organise a bird counting event in an area open for hunting during hunting season.

A few gunshots were not going to prevent us getting a count of the birds and there were a few although not many compared to August. The highlight were a group of 3 Long-billed Dowitchers, a long-billed shorebird. Callie and I came prepared with rubber boots to ford as area of water to get to the lake shore. There were a few Pied-billed Grebes, Blue-winged Teal and a nice groups of American Widgeon but the Red-necked Grebe family had moved on.

Greater Yellowlegs were the most abundant shorebird for the second blitz in a row. Photo copyright Donna Martin

Returning to the car we caught up with Christian Artuso who had walked across the old 415 again. A lineup of hunters limited Christians capacity to ferret birds out from all corners. In fact the fear of acting as a ‘beater’, flushing birds into the waiting guns suppressed any desire to move from the track.

Shock of the day, Christian forgot to bring his tripod on a birding trip. Photo copyright Jo Swartz

Still Christians numbers were very impressive, 2605 birds in total, including 115 Rusty Blackbirds. The last figure is important as it would make the IBA a globally significant site for this species which has been designated by IUCN as Vulnerable. He had also met with Matt Gasner, Jillian Detwiler and Dana Schroeder who had been covering the ground on the other side of the 415. Apparently Jillian, Matt’s wife, has made past visits to Shoal Lakes as a parasitologist at the University of Manitoba. This reminds me of those distant university labs dissecting Sticklebacks in the search for parasites……

The internationally threatened Rusty Blackbird in all its rusty glory. Photo copyright Donna Martin

Our group moved towards Inward and lunch to see how everyone else had got along. The general consensus was that numbers were down on last time but this might be mitigated by the fact that hunters were present along most of the routes. Obviously a few hunters are not going to have a massive impact on the number of birds but the disturbance will move birds to less accessible ‘refuges’ and reduce ther total counts.

The other groups had it seemed enjoyed a productive morning. Two groups had been fortunate enough to spy White-winged and Surf Scoter on the lake. The first group to do this was that of Joanne Smith, Bill Rideout and Sabina Mastrolonardo. Their job was to survey the area west of North Shoal Lake. This time Joanne failed to record a single bovine-bear but the scoters (at least one person had a lifer) more than made up for this. They also recorded the sole Mourning Dove of the day in a total of 363 birds, a big drop on last time.

No one caught a great photo of the White-winged Scoters on the day but here is a photo from Seal River Estuary IBA with a couple of Eider Ducks in northern Manitoba. Photo copyright Christian Artuso

Further south at East Shoal Lake, the combination of Jo Swartz, Betsy Thorsteinson and Rob Parsons had also recorded both scoter species. This group seemed to run the monopoly on finding species that no other group were able to locate; Ruffed Grouse, Common Loon, Western Grebe, Osprey and Yellow-headed Blackbird were on their daily checklist. Other highlights were 13 Tundra Swans and 1577 Canada Geese.

Tundra Swans in flight. Photo copyright Donna Martin

Across from them on the western side of West Shoal Lake, were John Weier, Garry Budyk and John Hays, ‘the dream team’. A couple of Hooded Merganser, Horned Grebe, a Peregrine Falcon and a House Wren were among their total of 1665 birds and 61 species they recorded.

Horned Grebe copyright Garry Budyk

Lapland Longspur numbers were starting to build up by this point. Photo copyright Donna Martin

That was a quick summary of all the different groups. Well almost all the different groups. We planned to meet for lunch around 1:30 but by 2pm there was still no sign of our final group Donna Martin and Ray Methot. As I was dialing for the rescue helicopter, they appeared having birded the backtracks in Ray’s quad. Stylish! I must get myself one of those for the IBA Program! This groups seemed to be the best for winkling out the teals, with 252 Green-winged and 102 Blue-winged Teal as well as a good mix of other species.

Another of the wetlands surrounding the lakes. Photo copyright Garry Budyk

After lunch and an unsavory incident which we shall studiously avoid mentioning involving a piece of pumpkin pie, a candle and some very bad singing, a few of us went looking for the scoters along North Shoal Lake. We managed to find the White-winged Scoters but had to leave before the others had located Surf Scoters, completing a very successful day.

From left to right: Donna, Ray, John H and John Weier. Photo copyright Garry Budyk

Thanks again to everyone for coming along and giving up your time on a beautiful Saturday morning. To finish this blog, I learnt 2 important lessons. These were:

1. Don’t organise a bird blitz during hunting season as the birds will shift around the area
2. Never joke to Donna about birthday cake

North, West and East Shoal Lake sign below the RM of Armstrong sign. Note the bullet holes in the RM sign. Classy! Photo copyright Christian Artuso

Whitewater Lake is one of Manitoba’s most popular birding spots, the destination for more many a rarity and even lifer. Now thanks to Colin and Gillian it has its very own IBA Facebook page: Whitewater Lake.

If you had not found it yet, there is also Donna’s North, West and East Shoal Lakes IBA Facebook page at Shoal Lakes.

Oh and Joanne’s Riverton Sandy Bar at Riverton.

If anyone out there is interested in the trifling small details of IBA boundaries, you will surely enjoy our new boundary for the Southwestern Mixed-grass Prairie IBA.

Spot the difference. The green areas on the maps refer to areas of grassland. As you can see, there is a large section of grassland missing from the IBA in the southeast corner. This is the area known as the Blind Souris.

The changes were made to include the native prairies around the Blind Souris in the IBA boundary which were omitted originally. The Blind Souris has excellent habitat for grassland specialist birds including Ferruginous Hawk, Chestnut-collared Longspur and Sprague’s Pipit. This is not just a place for threatened birds, it also provides habitat for endangered plants, including some of the best remaining areas of Buffalograss in Manitoba (More info here).

We do not take boundary changes lightly and will only change them when there is a clear biological justification – we’re not politicians looking for electoral advantage after all!

This may not be the last word on this topic but for the meantime thanks to Andrew and Mike from Bird Studies Canada for acting on this.

As we have a 2nd blitz on the 3rd October at the North, West and East Shoal Lakes IBA it is effectively halftime. Now everyone has been able to submit their complete checklists for the day I thought it would be fun to post the numbers of birds counted on August 29th. So here goes:

So there we go, after the 1st blitz, the most numerous species is the American Coot at 1282 individuals followed by Blue-winged Teal and the trusty Mallards and a total of 132 species. It will be interesting to see how numbers change next month. We would probably expect fewer species but with more sparrows and very few, if any warblers still around. Canada Goose might possibly be expected to be the most abundant species and the numbers of shorebirds will also likely have fallen. All will be revealed on this site after the blitz and we can compare the changes in species types and abundance then.

All in all something to look forward to on October 3rd!

Saturday 29th August 2015 was our first bird migration blitz at the North, West and East Shoal Lakes IBA. 14 people made their way from WInnipeg, Gimli and further afield to take part. Tim Poole shares some memories and photos from the mornings birding. 

A perfect morning for counting birds. Photo copyright Garry Budyk

Mist. Oh dear! Not the most auspicious start to the mornings birding activities. Surely things will improve soon?

Driving along West Shoal Lake, the mist hovering over the water, a Belted Kingfisher flies across the front and as the organizer, I am getting a wee bit concerned. Soon Garry Budyk and John Weier will be here to start counting and I haven’t got a didgeridoo (clue) how things are going to go. Apparently it took about an hour after our 7am start for Garry and John to get going. But things did improve (as evidenced below).

John Weier thinking of lunch? Photo copyright Garry Budyk

John and Garry would eventually be able to count good numbers or birds. in fact they managed to record 78 species and almost 1600 individuals. The section of West Shoal Lakes is a fantastic place for seeing ducks and shorebirds, even more-so in spring than fall.

Good duck habitat. Note the trees at the back of the photo. This is the boundary of the lake when water levels were a wee bit lower. Photo copyright Garry Budyk.

The IBA was split into 7 survey sections, 4 to be accessed by vehicle, 1 by boat and 2 on foot.

14 people scattered in cars, foot, even a boat across the area. Optics galore and (from the evidence of the photos here), some rather good photographic gear. For anyone unfamiliar with the area, the Shoal Lakes IBA is in the Interlake area near Inwood. Originally this was a great place for Piping Plover but high water levels make it currently unsuitable for these rare birds. instead there are waterfowl aplenty, blackbirds, shorebirds and even the occasional Least Bittern (see here). Donna Martin is caretaker for this IBA and was also responsible for gaining the two donations which are funding these fall blitzes. Beforehand the big job was to recruit volunteers and provide maps of the survey sections which you can see to the left.

Donna was teamed up with Ray Methot and covered the north and west sides of North Shoal Lake. There were a fair few shorebirds in the area and another Least Bittern darted away.

I dropped Matt Gasner in rubber boots to walk across the washed out parts of Provincial Road 415, where he would meet Christian Artuso halfway. The following photos and captions are all from Christian and along with the captions tell the story of their birding highlights and endeavors along the flooded highway.

Common Yellowthroat: There were many migratory warblers counted, presumably some migrants mixed with local-born Common Yellowthroats in the 54 I counted (before I joined up with Matt and there were many more after that).

Greater Yellowlegs: we are deeply grateful to team yellowlegs for assisting in assessing the depth of water over the flooded road! No incidents occurred, other than a few wet pairs of socks.

One of 18 Virginia rails seen or heard, including many juveniles

One of 51 Soras seen or heard, including many juveniles trotting about in the open (plus more after I joined up with Matt)

The marsh seemed to be teeming with Northern Waterthrushes (this is one of 38 I counted by myself plus more again after I joined up with Matt)

Matt Gasner counting egrets, waterfowl and shorebirds along the flooded PR 415

While Christian and Matt were wading across an old highway, I was exploring another nearby road which might disappear at any moment. Needless to say, the mist reappeared before the road disappeared! I did manage one major achievemnet; that of getting the wettest feet of the day while trying to wade across a flooded section of road. I still managed to find 419 American Coots and 400+ ducks in the surrounding wetlands. Unbelievably, even though I eventually waded to the lake shore, I failed to enter the IBA! Later I would meet up with Christian and Matt counting another section with Semipalmated Plovers (37), Semipalmated Sandpiper (3), Least Sandpiper (2) and a single calling Long-billed Dowitcher.

While all this was going on, we had Bonnie Chartier roaming East Shoal Lake with Cam Meuckon from Manitoba Conservation on a boat. Special thanks to Cam for offering his time and the boat for the morning. Birding highlight? Scoters, ’nuff’ said!

Map of Cam’s and Bonnie’s route. Note how they seemed to spend most of their ‘boat trip’ on land especially to the north and east! This goes to show how much greater the water levels are now compared to where they were in the past.

Joanne Smith, Bill Rideout and Peter Douglas surveyed the eastern side of North Shoal Lake. They had the distinction of seeing a rather special couple of waterbirds….

Yes, that’s right Trumpeter Swans. No, er, Tundra Swans, er, Tumpeter or is it Trundra Swans? Ok, they were Trumpeter Swans. Note the size difference with the adjacent Canada Geese, the long straight beak and lack of yellow on the lores below the eye. Photo copyright Bill Rideout

Apparently these guys must have started really early judging by this photo of the moon.

August is not known as a good time to do nocturnal owl surveys but that didn’t stop our intrepid surveyors from trying. Photo copyright Bill Rideout

One nameless member of the group spotted a Big Black Bear (new acronym BBB). Stoooooooooooooooooooop’ he/she yelled, ‘I see a bear’. The other group members turn to look but only see a field of cows. Admit it, we’ve all managed to confuse a cow and a bear!

Big black bird aka Common Raven. Photo copyright Bill Rideout

Again there were hosts of birds and much confusion to be found; yellowlegs, terns, ravens and warblers among a host of others.

Bill claims that he would have ‘bet the farm’ on his identification of this Cooper’s Hawk. Er, it’s a Merlin. Photo copyright Bill Rideout

A Yellow Warbler with half a face. Photo copyright Bill Rideout.

Greater Yellowlegs and the close resembling Lesser Yellowlegs were the most abundant shorebird on the day. Photo copyright Bill Rideout.

Unfortunately this Forster’s Tern is displaying winter plumage. Is it trying to tell us something? Photo copyright Bill Rideout

Bonaparte’s Gull were the more numerous gull species on the day. The prairie breeding Franklin’s Gulls have long left leaving more northern breeding gulls in their stead. Photo copyright Bill Rideout.

Everyone loves a kingfisher! Photo copyright Bill Rideout

Another fantastic shot showing the eerie damp, misty start to the day. Photo copyright Jo Swartz

Jo Swartz, Liis Veelma and Betsy Thorsteinson were our East Shoal Lake road team. They managed to achieve another birding highlight by hearing the secretive Yellow Rail calling very early on. Other birding highlights were Pectoral Sandpiper and American Pipit, the only group to locate these species on the blitz. I should apologise for sending this group up some pretty ropey roads looking for access points to the southern end of the lakes. Sorry!

Just before 1pm, a trail of us began to turn up at Rosie’s Cafe in Inwood for a late breakfast/brunch/lunch to share experiences and locations for a couple of species (the Trumpeter Swans were certainly revisited).

Thanks to everyone mentioned above for giving up your weekend to help out. The next blitz is on Saturday October 3rd. If you are interested in coming along for the ride please let me know at iba@naturemanitoba.ca.

We were obviously very happy with our efforts in Southwestern Manitoba earlier this summer. After a bountiful number of blogs, Facebook and forum posts we have also managed to make the front cover of the latest newsletter from Nature Manitoba. So click here to read the last article from the summers adventure. I promise.

Of course, after Saturday we will turn our attention to bountiful articles and blogs describing our Shoal Lake Bird Blitz.

We recently submitted an article to the Melita New Era describing our Southwestern Mixed-Grass Prairie IBA blitz. You can view it by clicking on the link below.

Melita New Era IBA article

Tim Poole, Manitoba IBA Coordinator, gives us the rundown on happenings post Melita Banana Day.

Once the banana split had been consumed, the table put away, what else could we do but find some birds! There are 2 IBA’s in this part of southwestern Manitoba, one being the grassland IBA which includes the town of Melita and the other is the famous birding hotspot at Whitewater Lake.

At this junction it is worth noting that the Southwestern Mixed-grass Prairie IBA is also a great place for migrating wetland birds. It is after all part of the prairie potholes region of Manitoba with abundant small wetlands scattered across the area. Early August is also the height of the shorebird migration season where the summer breeding shorebirds (Marbled Godwit, Willet, Killdeer, American Avocet, Wilson’s Phalarope, Upland Sandpiper) have already moulted and began their migration. These are gradually being replaced by boreal and Hudson Bay shorebirds. Early August is a good time to catch both groups of shorebirds and over the course of the afternoon Christian and I certainly managed to do this.

American Golden Plover. Photo by Christian Artuso

As I mentioned previously, there are many great wetlands within this IBA and most species recorded within the IBA boundary are birds more associated with wetlands than grasslands. My personal highlight was seeing the American Golden Plovers, a lifer! It was great to finally see this species in the flesh having encountered many a Eurasian Golden Plover when out and about in the uplands of Scotland in my former life. If you take some time to check out the excellent Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas website (here) you will see that this species breeds on the soft tundra of the Hudson Bay lowlands.

In total we encountered 81 species within this IBA and counted a whopping 1960 individuals. This included 9 species of waterfowl (386 individuals), a disappointing 160 American Coots (see later as to why this figure is deemed disappointing), 45 Pied-billed Grebes, 19 species of shorebird (389 individuals), 272 Black Terns and 250 blackbirds.

Onward towards Whitewater Lake. One thing that struck us even just outside Melita were the number of White-faced Ibis encountered. This species is a relatively recent arrival in Manitoba (see the fantastic ‘The Birds of Manitoba‘ for history of this species in Manitoba prior to 2003). In fact prior to this date there had not been a confirmed breeding record in Manitoba.

There are a few things you should read ahead of visiting Whitewater Lake. The first is an excellent trip report from Christian Artuso from a trip taken to Jo Swartz a couple of weeks ago (see see here). There is also an excellent piece in the Manitoba Cooperator (here). To give a bit of background, back to Christians blogpost and here is a great extract describing the background to the booming population of White-faced Ibis:

The viewing mound with road collapsing. Photo copyright Christian Artuso

‘Whitewater Lake is a closed basin and has alternated from periods of being bone dry (a few decades ago) to being flooded well past its former shoreline as is the current situation. When I arrived in Manitoba in the early 2000s, the lake was slowly filling back up again and was very shallow at that time. I remember when the whole basin had a shallow layer of water, that the shorebird flocks numbered in the tens of thousands. I recall watching with friends as a Prairie Falcon put up a massive and dense cloud of shorebirds. Then by the mid 2000s, as the lake was getting deeper and the emergent vegetation growing tall in many areas, the lake seemed transformed from a shorebirding destination to a site for rare long-

Broken dyke wall at Whitewater Lake. Photo copyright by Christian Artuso

legged waders. In 2006, Ron Bazin and I confirmed breeding of White-faced Ibis in Manitoba for the first time and many rare herons began appearing more and more regularly. In addition to the White-faced Ibis, Great Egrets and Cattle Egrets established colonies and Snowy Egrets were eventually confirmed breeding by Ken De Smet in 2011. All this high water and the great fetch of the prairie winds eventually breached the dyke structures that were built to create cells in the southeastern corner of the lake, such that by 2014 they were “united” with the lake and the cattail beds largely drowned out. The road to the main viewing mound is collapsing and is not currently safe to drive. The shorebirds are no longer as concentrated as they used to be and water logged fields one or two miles from the lake are mow the best places to look for them. Although these areas are not currently within the IBA, some of the wetland-upland complexes around the lake represent important ephemeral habitats that host great diversity and concentrations, as well as high productivity.’

Eurasian Collared Doves in, er, Deloraine Manitoba. Photo copyright Christian Artuso

Before hitting Whitewater we stopped in the nearby town of Deloraine for gas and food and for what felt to me like the daftest bird of the day. Eurasian Collared Dove is something I have seen my entire life in Europe where I was born and raised. To see it in the middle of Manitoba sitting on the top of a street lamp was a pretty surreal experience. Even more surreal was hearing that they were originally introduced to North America via the Bahamas of all places.

Finally Whitewater Lake and not much introduction needed to the situation regarding high water levels after Christians great background piece. The highlight ironically of this part of the day was not even a wetland bird. Prairie Falcons breed in the badlands of Saskatchewan and Alberta and head over to Manitoba post breeding. 

The reminder of the afternoon was cut short by the need to get home at a decent time but it would be worth pointing out the numbers recorded in a rushed effort to see as much as possible. Unfortunately many of the birds we encountered are no longer in the IBA because the current high water levels extend way beyond the IBA boundary. This is unfortunately a by-product of setting up our IBA boundaries for wetland sites when water levels across the province are much lower than they are currently. However in total we were able to count 11726 birds representing 82 species. Of these we encountered the following:

• 5672 waterfowl representing 13 species incl. 1820 Mallards and 1179 Gadwall
• 540 grebes representing 5 species incl. 2 Clark’s Grebe near the viewing mound
• 61 herons and allies incl. 36 White-face Ibis
• 3026 American Coot
• 550 shorebirds representing 17 species including northern breeders
  Red-necked Phalarope and Hudsonian Godwit. This paled into insignificance against Christians previous week total of 3123 American Avocets, indicating that a) we covered a lot less ground and b) many of these birds have already migrated
• 468 gulls and terns
• 1050 blackbirds

Cabbage White Butterflies were an abundant food source for birds including Black Terns. Photo copyright Christian Artuso

It’s also worth noting that Birdlife International have changed the name to ‘Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas’ and an emergence of Cabbage White Butterflies was providing great entertainment for insectivorous birds, especially the acrobatic Black Terns. Although Cabbage Whites are an introduced species, it was still a great example of how birds rely so much on the whole ecosystem for resources.

Finally a massive thanks to Christian for the company and guiding on a long day on Saturday.

Christian Artuso, Whitewater Lake. Photo by Tim Poole