Patricia Barrett of the Express Weekly has written a piece about the Riverton Sandy Bar weed pull. Jump to page 26 at this link.

“I don’t think weed pulling is a very exciting thing for most people. It is just like a carpet out there, but it’s actually really easy to pull.”

Joanne Smith, IBA Caretaker, CBC News

Thus spoke the voice of wisdom! However, I have to confess something. Weed pulling can be hard work at times, but it can also be very rewarding, being a great way to enjoy a beautiful fall day, hang out with some fine company, see some fun birds and experience fantastic home baking. What better way to spend the final day in September!

Firstly, a wee bit of background information. Caretaker Joanne Smith had been exploring options for removing white sweet clover, an invasive species taking over large areas of the Riverton sandbar. In addition, increased (illegal) ATV traffic has disturbed soils which provides ideal conditions for plants to colonise sandy soils.The increased vegetation has reduced habitat for Piping Plover and other nesting species. Joanne, a true champion of the IBA, wished to start the process of rectifying this, culminating in Fridays event.

We arrived at the parking lot in good spirit. The IBA Program had taken on the great responsibility of providing the garden waste sacks for which we would remove the weeds of our labour. Proudly showing off my bundle of 20 bags, Joanne immediately informed us that we would need at least 10 times as many to remove the vegetation from the bar. What’s more, the target area was about 1km from the parking lot. Original plans to drive the weeds to the landfill at Gimli were shelved and a new plan hatched which would involve a permit and a bonfire.

That though would be a task for other organisations on another day. Our plan was simple, we would need to get pulling. Stage 1 was to select an area in which to remove the vegetation. In any walk of life it is important to adapt plans to the circumstances. Although many of the plants had still not gone to seed, some unfortunately had and it was clear that already large amounts of seed had dispersed on the sand. Lesson 1 then was to ensure we did any weed pulling earlier in the fall in repeat workparties in 2017 (for there will be repeats).

Lesson number 2 of the day was to focus on one area and not spread ourselves too thinly. Following a first hour spread over a wide area, we decided latterly to focus all effort on a smaller area, clearing just enough habitat to create a single Piping Plover territory.

The final lesson was to make sure we could have a controlled burn on the day next time, ridding the area of any remaining seed to prevent greater encroachment. That said, the bagging team, led ably by Nature Manitoba member Jeff Bruce, did a great job.

Twenty full bags seemed like an achievement until you notice the very large pile of weeds on the right side of the photo below

On completing our days weed pulling, we couldn’t resist a short walk to the end of the bar to look for some birds. After all, we were in an IBA. The highlight had to be a Smith’s Longspur, lifer for at least 3 observers. Another highlight were the Rusty Blackbirds, numerous enough to hit the trigger for globally important concentrations on the day.

Other species encountered included a group of American Golden Plovers, Spotted Sandpiper, Black-bellied Plover, Harris Sparrow, Lapland Longspur, Horned Lark, Ring-billed Gull, Bonaparte’s Gull, Common Merganser, Green-winged Teal, Pectoral Sandpiper and American Pipit, a pretty good day list. Special mention to Jock McCracken here as well, having secured I believe 6 lifers during the morning.

While we were out at the tip of the sandbar, Manitoba Sustainable Development had put up the below new signs. These are partly aimed at restricting vehicle access to the Special Conservation Area during the summer. ATV use is an increasing pastime seemingly in some of these rural areas and can cause disturbance to breeding birds and their habitats.

Thank you to all our volunteers, the East Interlake Conservation District and Manitoba Sustainable Development. These were:

Christian Artuso, Tim Poole, Bonnie Chartier, Dave Roberts, Audrey Boitson, Heather Alexander, Jeff Bruce, Patricia Barrett, Thor Johannson, Jock McCracken, Linda Curtis and Peter and Elsie Douglas.

 

Most of all, thank you to Joanne, a great champion for Riverton Sandy Bar, for organising a great day. We will be doing this again in 2017, so please watch this space and consider joining us.

Black-necked Stilts are a rarity in Manitoba so it is a real privilege not just to see them but to have a breeding pair with fledging young. Our caretaker Gillian Richards sent us this photo of an adult and young from Whitewater Lake IBA this summer. The pair have raised 4 chicks.

Joanne Smith, IBA Caretaker for Riverton Sandy Bar has for a long while been exploring the possibility of improving habitat for nesting Piping Plovers via the removal of invasive sweet clover. By removing the sweet clover we hope that the increased areas of exposed sand will encourage Piping Plovers to nest again here as they did elsewhere in Manitoba in 2016. The arrangements are:

1. Meet Friday September 30th, at 9:00 am at the Sandy Bar SAC Parking Lot. Sandy Bar is at the east end of PR329. Take HWY 8 to Riverton, turn east into the town of Riverton on PR 329 (this is the most southerly entrance into Riverton). Stay on this road until you end up at Sandy Bar. It will take you through the town, across the Icelandic River, onto gravel road, into the marsh area of this IBA and to the edge of the lake. Simply put, keep heading east on PR 329 and you’ll be there.
2. Please bring gloves, food, drinks, long pants and extra layers. If it’s windy, the temperature could easily be 5 degrees or more colder out on the sand bar. This event will also require a mile walk in the sand and a short walk through thick bush.
3. We will endeavour to bring some additional snacks and coffee
4. If you know of any students who are working on volunteer credit hours, this may also be of interest.

Manitoba Conservation will also be putting up new boundary signs for this Special Conservation Area at this time.

According to Joanne ‘maybe you’ll have a chance at seeing horned larks, American pipits, Lapland longspurs, black-bellied plover or American golden plover as all of these species were seen on Oct. 1st of last year’.

 

 

For the first time in many months, this morning I had cold fingers as I cycled to work. To make matters worse, the building heating is not on yet and it’s been a pretty cold day in the office as well. We must be in the midst of fall!

So alas, winter is on its way but we still have ample opportunities to get out to Manitoba’s 38 IBAs. The program is doing its bit still to try to encourage folk to enjoy the final opportunities for citizen science bird monitoring ahead of winter and we have teamed up with our friends at Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre to undertake a final blitz of the season. This time we go out on Saturday October 1st to Oak Hammock to count as many birds as possible. We plan to start early, meeting at the centre at 7am and then setting out as four teams to begin with. Each team will set up at a corner of the IBA with the task of counting ducks and geese as they depart at sunrise to feed in the surrounding countryside. Around 10am, the teams will monitor different areas of the marsh to count the number of birds remaining. This is a great way of trying to gauge an accurate idea of the number of birds to be found at one of Manitoba’s top birding hotspots in early October.

Once we are finished, we will return to the centre at 1pm and shout volunteers a warm cup of coffee and lunch. you can’t get much better than that!

If you are interested in joining us, please contact Tim Poole, Manitoba IBA Program Coordinator at iba@naturemanitoba.ca or 204-943-9029

Following a day where groups of volunteers counting from vehicles and on foot and a second day of boat monitoring, we had recorded an impressive 32,070 birds across the IBA. If you were to visit parts of Delta in the coming weeks there is likely to be even more birds as waterfowl gather in larger numbers. The total species count was an equally impressive 145 species. Of these 59 species of songbird, 24 species of shorebird and an impressive 13 species of bird of prey. Impressively, shorebirds were the most numerous of all groups of birds counted, a total of 8199 across the 2 days with around half counted in one spot by Colin Blyth, Louanne Reid and Erica Alex.

	Total species	Total individuals
Blackbirds	8	1210
Cormorants and Pelicans	2	2444
Grebe	4	479
Gulls and terns	8	7712
Long-legged Wader	4	270
Other – non-songbird	11	267
Other – songbird	46	946
Rails	3	2956
Raptor	13	264
Shorebirds	24	8199
Swallows	5	2446
Waterfowl	17	4883
TOTAL	145	32076

Now to individual species. The most numerous species over 2 days was the Ring-billed Gull at 5367 individuals, over half counted by Christian and Matt at Ambroise Beach before they headed in different directions. The next most numerous species was the Semipalmated Sandpiper. On the Semipalmated theme, the Semipalmated Plover came in at 1936 individuals. This is a key figure as we are pretty sure this is greater than 1% of the global population of this species, thus this would have been a globally significant concentration of this species.

Finally, before posting the complete species lists, I thought it would be worth reflecting for a moment on what all this means. The large concentrations of shorebirds seen by Cam and the other Manitoba Sustainable Development staff, although apparently historically not unusual, has become a rare sight in recent years. There are some excellent resources available out there if you are interested in learning more about the history and management of the marsh, not least a new book published in 2015 called Delta: A Prairie Marsh and Its People by Glen Suggett, Gordon Goldsborough & the Delta History Group. For a quick reference, there is a synopsis on the web of a presentation given by Dr Jennifer Shay to Nature Manitoba in 1998 on the subject of Resource Management which includes some excellent information on Delta Marsh. Cal Cuthbert, someone raised in the shadow of Delta Marsh and with a background in wetland management was of the opinion that these larger concentrations present at Delta was a temporary phenomenon driven by declining water levels which have exposed suitable habitat. It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming years.

Anyway, posted below are the results from the Delta Marsh IBA Blitz.

Species	Day 1	Day 2	Blitz Total
Canada Goose	930	23	953
Wood Duck	15	0	15
Gadwall	59	55	114
American Wigeon	194	27	221
Mallard	874	759	1633
Blue-winged Teal	875	385	1260
Northern Shoveler	13	13	26
Northern Pintail	128	1	129
Green-winged Teal	224	13	237
dabbling duck sp.	4	0	4
Canvasback	10	2	12
Redhead	6	14	20
Ring-necked Duck	7	4	11
Bufflehead	1	1	2
Common Goldeneye	6	0	6
Harlequin Duck	1	0	1
Hooded Merganser	5	3	8
Ruddy Duck	4	7	11
duck sp.	0	220	220
Pied-billed Grebe	58	10	68
Red-necked Grebe	2	0	2
Eared Grebe	2	2	4
Western Grebe	315	90	405
Double-crested Cormorant	1525	108	1633
American White Pelican	321	490	811
American Bittern	5	2	7
Great Blue Heron	60	91	151
Great Egret	24	14	38
Black-crowned Night-Heron	4	70	74
Turkey Vulture	13	0	13
Northern Harrier	45	9	54
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1	0	1
Cooper’s Hawk	2	0	2
Northern Goshawk	2	0	2
Bald Eagle	40	17	57
Broad-winged Hawk	1	0	1
Swainson’s Hawk	3	0	3
Red-tailed Hawk	83	3	86
hawk sp.	4	0	4
Virginia Rail	2	1	3
Sora	2	0	2
American Coot	249	2702	2951
Sandhill Crane	132	0	132
American Avocet	9	5	14
Black-bellied Plover	54	8	62
Semipalmated Plover	1905	31	1936
Killdeer	71	38	109
Marbled Godwit	18	6	24
Ruddy Turnstone	3	3	6
Red Knot	1	0	1
Stilt Sandpiper	10	1	11
Sanderling	190	1	191
Baird’s Sandpiper	15	4	19
Least Sandpiper	1168	253	1421
White-rumped Sandpiper	26	0	26
Pectoral Sandpiper	107	0	107
Semipalmated Sandpiper	3598	56	3654
peep sp.	28	41	69
Short-billed Dowitcher	27	0	27
Long-billed Dowitcher	0	1	1
Wilson’s Snipe	10	8	18
Wilson’s Phalarope	12	4	16
Red-necked Phalarope	1	0	1
Spotted Sandpiper	29	11	40
Solitary Sandpiper	2	0	2
Greater Yellowlegs	151	84	235
Willet	4	7	11
Lesser Yellowlegs	163	35	198
Bonaparte’s Gull	436	5	441
Franklin’s Gull	1230	47	1277
Ring-billed Gull	5153	214	5367
Herring Gull	129	0	129
Caspian Tern	47	54	101
Black Tern	6	3	9
Common Tern	128	0	128
Forster’s Tern	144	72	216
Sterna sp.	44	0	44
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)	33	0	33
Mourning Dove	53	1	54
Great Horned Owl	1	0	1
Ruby-throated Hummingbird	15	2	17
Belted Kingfisher	6	0	6
Red-headed Woodpecker	3	0	3
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	1	0	1
Downy Woodpecker	4	0	4
Hairy Woodpecker	2	0	2
Northern Flicker	14	0	14
American Kestrel	14	0	14
Merlin	20	3	23
Peregrine Falcon	3	0	3
Prairie Falcon	1	0	1
Eastern Wood-Pewee	1	0	1
Alder Flycatcher	1	0	1
Least Flycatcher	2	0	2
Eastern Phoebe	14	0	14
Eastern Kingbird	43	0	43
Blue-headed Vireo	1	0	1
Warbling Vireo	13	0	13
Red-eyed Vireo	1	0	1
Blue Jay	1	0	1
Black-billed Magpie	19	0	19
American Crow	15	4	19
Common Raven	18	2	20
Purple Martin	26	0	26
Tree Swallow	851	0	851
Bank Swallow	349	1	350
Barn Swallow	993	24	1017
Cliff Swallow	0	2	2
Swallow sp.	200	0	200
Black-capped Chickadee	1	0	1
Red-breasted Nuthatch	2	0	2
House Wren	11	0	11
Marsh Wren	14	1	15
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	1	0	1
Eastern Bluebird	13	0	13
American Robin	8	0	8
Gray Catbird	11	1	12
European Starling	213	0	213
Cedar Waxwing	87	0	87
Tennessee Warbler	19	0	19
Orange-crowned Warbler	2	0	2
Nashville Warbler	4	0	4
Mourning Warbler	1	0	1
Common Yellowthroat	33	0	33
American Redstart	31	0	31
Cape May Warbler	1	0	1
Magnolia Warbler	2	0	2
Blackburnian Warbler	1	0	1
Yellow Warbler	28	1	29
Chestnut-sided Warbler	2	0	2
Blackpoll Warbler	9	0	9
Palm Warbler	10	0	10
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle)	10	0	10
Black-throated Green Warbler	0	2	2
Chipping Sparrow	5	0	5
Clay-colored Sparrow	61	0	61
Vesper Sparrow	5	0	5
Savannah Sparrow	58	0	58
Song Sparrow	41	1	42
Swamp Sparrow	6	0	6
Rose-breasted Grosbeak	13	0	13
Bobolink	2	0	2
Red-winged Blackbird	136	27	163
Western Meadowlark	9	0	9
Yellow-headed Blackbird	363	8	371
Brewer’s Blackbird	33	0	33
Common Grackle	3	2	5
Brown-headed Cowbird	1	0	1
Baltimore Oriole	11	0	11
Blackbird sp	615	0	615
American Goldfinch	99	2	101
House Sparrow	1	0	1
	25863	6207	32070

Thanks again to all volunteers over the two days, as ever very much appreciated!

 

Back to Delta on Monday morning and this time I’m if anything a little more dreary thanks to the 3am wake-up from my daughter. But the show goes on. A quick detour en-route to Marquette and the Buff-breasted Sandpipers appeared to have gone.

Arriving at the Delta Waterfowl Centre near Delta Beach, we got to watch a number of warblers on the ridge as we waited for people to arrive. Black-throated Green, Cape May, Magnolia, Orange-crowned, Tennessee, Blackpoll, Myrtle (I’m convinced) and American Redstart were all present. In addition to the road and foot patrols of Sunday, we had agreed to get two teams to survey the marsh interior on boats provided by Manitoba Sustainable Development. In addition to our excellent guides and boaters Matt Tower and Riley Bartel, we had Christian Artuso, Cal Cuthbert, Bonnie Chartier and Joanne Smith ready and willing to get their feet wet in the interest of bird conservation.

The interior of Delta Marsh, at least on the east of the access road to Delta Beach, consists of a series of channels and areas of open water interspersed with small islands and areas of cattail marsh. To survey this entire area in just 4 hours would not be possible, and with a focus on shorebirds and the wind coming from a north-westerly direction, it was only ever going to make sense monitoring the marsh along the northern bays. As mentioned in the previous blog, the focus of this shorebird monitoring were areas where the water levels had dropped sufficiently to expose cattails and the surrounding mud. This created a unique habitat of dead cattails and wet mud, ideal for foraging shorebirds. Again, as mentioned on the previous blog, the water levels dropped during August which may have reduced the area of available foraging habitat. This pattern was noticeable in some of the sheltered bays we accessed by boat and our guides confirmed that they had previously seen higher densities of shorebirds earlier in August.

We split into two boats, Riley taking Christian and Joanne and Matt taking Bonnie, Cal and myself. The first boat (group 1 on the below map) surveyed the northern edges of Simpson, Blackfox and Bay 22 and the second (group 2) focused on Clair, Gadwell, Waterhen and the surrounding areas.

Surveying by boat possesses a number of unique challenges compared to land-based surveys, not least the challenge of watching birds through binoculars on moving water. Fortunately being on the sheltered side of the wetland, this was not a big issue. Another challenge is that a moving boat tends to flush and move birds which are either on the water or feeding close to the shore. This raised issues of double-counting. Interestingly, the shorebirds appeared to be the least jumpy birds on the day which was obviously good for us but pelicans on the otherhand do not appear to appreciate fast moving boats….

As with our previous blitz at Whitewater Lake, I came to the conclusion that we must have missed a peak of migrating shorebirds on this survey. The reports given by both Matt and Riley were of larger concentrations in the preceding weeks. This is one of the dangers of any monitoring program for migratory birds but alas there is little we can do apart from get ore boots on the ground across the season and hope to pick up the peaks and troughs of migratory bird movements. Overnight, the wind had turned from a southerly to a brisk northerly, the perfect conditions for shorebirds on the move. More on that later! The other identifiable difference was that much of the dead cattail habitat had dried out which probably reduced the availability of foraging habitat for shorebirds.

While making our ways around the various headlands and through the channels, it became obvious that there were a large number of herons using the marsh interior, no surprises there. Our boat on the eastern side of the marsh recorded good numbers of Black-crowned Night Herons, 60 in total. There were also 97 Great Blue Herons. American Bittern and Great Egret were also present, plus over 2000 American Coot.

Caspian Terns were one of 6 species of gull and tern present as Cal Cuthbert shows us below…..

Shorebirds were our primary target and between both groups we counted 17 species. Numbers, something I previously alluded to, were, anecdotally, fewer than previously seen in these areas. The most numerous was Least Sandpiper with 255 individuals. There were also reasonable numbers of Semipalmated Sandpiper, Semipalmated Plover, Killdeer, Greater Yellowlegs, Spotted Sandpiper and Lesser Yellowlegs. My personal highlight was my first Ruddy Turnstone for Manitoba which we only discovered thanks to the driver running us aground on a mudflat.

Returning to the boat launch, we had Mr Cal Cuthbert offering a new exercise regime of boat yoga

Following our arrival on dry land, Cal offered to take us to the spot in the west of the IBA where Colin Blyth et al had observed large concentrations of shorebirds. The previous day there was an image like this:

By Monday afternoon, this was a picture of the same area:

A quick perusal of the data, showed that Colin’s group counted 4,237 shorebirds across their area but almost all being in this single area. That was on Sunday. On Monday we counted in the same area 16 shorebirds, a dramatic drop which indicated a large movement of migrating shorebirds during the previous night. 20 species on Sunday, 5 on Monday. Here’s a quick comparison of numbers:

	Day 1	Day 2
American Avocet	3	1
Black-bellied Plover	1
Semipalmated Plover	1045	7
Killdeer	1
Ruddy Turnstone	2
Red Knot	1	1
Stilt Sandpiper	10
Sanderling	10
Baird’s Sandpiper	5
Least Sandpiper	227
White-rumped Sandpiper	25
Pectoral Sandpiper	102
Semipalmated Sandpiper	2735	3
Short-billed Dowitcher	24
Wilson’s Snipe	2
Wilson’s Phalarope	10
Spotted Sandpiper	2
Greater Yellowlegs	2	4
Willet	1
Lesser Yellowlegs	29
	4237	16

Interestingly one of the few remaining shorebirds was the juvenile Red Knot.

The final totals for both days will be posted later. Watch this space

 

Tim here with an overview of our recent blitz at the world famous Delta Marsh. Firstly, a bit of a disclaimer. Due to severe jetlag, I am unable to remember very much of what happened on the morning at Delta Marsh. Fortunately, thanks to a collection of photos and records from elsewhere, we can fit together a story of endeavor and skill from our fantastic volunteers.

To begin with let us start with some background to the Delta blitz. Boat surveys over the previous couple of years by staff at Manitoba Sustainable Development revealed that there were large concentrations of migrating shorebirds using areas of the marshes interior. Although historically a good place for shorebirds, changes in water levels and the impacts of invasive carp had altered the marsh habitats. The Province of Manitoba have in the last few years worked with partners to exclude the carp from the marsh. As bottom-dwelling fish, carp disturb sediments and uproot plants, leading to deteriorating water quality and loss of aquatic plants and wildlife. Manitoba Sustainable Development have been monitoring the impacts of the carp exclusion on the marsh and the indications are that water quality has improved, emergent vegetation is beginning to establish and wildlife is returning.

See Carp Exclusion Project and the video below for more information on this project.

Cam Meuckon from Manitoba Sustainable Development had originally asked the IBA Program to arrange this blitz in May or June but unfortunately we had to postpone this on three occasions due to poor weather. A late summer/early fall blitz was the only option. Cam had been monitoring the marsh and noticed that there were large concentrations of shorebirds on exposed mud around floating dead cattails. I saw this phenomenon myself when dropping by near Delta Beach one day and spotting several hundred shorebirds in these dead cattails west of the access road.

Again we were fortunate to have great numbers joining us for the blitz. We eventually ended up with around 8 groups and about 23 people including Manitoba Sustainable Development staff Matt Tower and Riley Bartel who guided a couple of our groups along some privately owned areas.

I kind of slumbered through my group with the ever cheerful Marshall Birch, Pat and Dave Wally and new volunteer Stephanie Connell. We were tasked with monitoring the area around Lake Francis and the east end of Twin Lakes Beach. We had difficulty with accessing Lake Francis itself but still managed to pick up some shorebirds on the beach. Raptors were probably among the most numerous birds in our area.

More interesting was the Harlequin Duck found by Matt Gasner on the point where Twin Lake and Ambroise Beaches meet. Matt also had some great luck on the shorebird species count with 13 species.

Closeby, Christian Artuso walked along a private track (with kind permission) to access some bays on the marsh interior. What is it with this guy? A shorebird magnet! In addition to 11 species of migratory wood warbler, Christian found some of the best shorebird numbers on the blitz (but possibly not the best, more to come on that). The following photo captions summarise some of these numbers:

Further south, Jo Swartz, Betsy Thorsteinson and another new volunteer, Josie Brendle, drove the roads monitoring bird numbers. Shorebirds were thin on the ground but still managed to pick up handy numbers.

Two groups, Carrie Braden and Luc Blanchette and Bonnie Chartier, Katharine Schulz and Emily McIntosh monitored along Delta Beach and an area north of the marsh interiro with kind permission from Delta Waterfowl. One group had a large flock of Black-bellied Plover and there were very good numbers of herons.

Cal Cuthbert, Janice Madill and Gord Ogilvie, the Portage team walked along the diversion and on Delta Beach. Bird numbers were low on the diversion but better on the beach. Highlight? A Prairie Falcon! They counted over 1000 Franklin’s Gulls and 320 Semipalmated Sandpipers.

Our final group hit the jackpot. Colin Blyth, Louanne Reid and Erica Alex were able to count around 4000 shorebirds at a single point on an opening in a creek.

This group had an unusual personal highlight. A Red Knot is not an unusual shorebird at this time of year in Delta but usually one would expect to see it on the beach rather than an internal waterway. The group found this first winter Red Knot among the other shorebirds.

A second blog will follow later this week with a second day of monitoring and then the final blog with the IBA totals. Watch this space. But to finish, Jo, Matt, Betsy and Christian really lucked out on the way home near Marquette seeing 34 Buff-breasted Sandpipers outside the IBA (boo). See Christian’s personal website for the story.

As the leaves begin to turn to vivid shades of yellow and red, an array of warblers tumble through the streets of Winnipeg and the days become ever shorter, it appears that change is in the air. Birdlife International have launched a new system of designation, the KBA or Key Biodiversity Areas.

Thus far, Birdlife International and its partners have identified 18,000 different sites, including all globally and continentally significant IBAs (not nationally significant IBAs) as KBAs. We currently do not know what the implications this has for the IBA Program, whether we will eventually become a KBA program or whether IBAs will remain. However it will not have any bearing on the day to day program here in Manitoba. Perhaps we will even end up with some more sites to work with as KBAs are identified here in Manitoba. After all, there are significant areas of habitat in Manitoba important for rare invertebrates and plants. We will look forward to seeing how the program develops.

For more information see:

What are Key Biodiversity Areas?

Top conservation players partner to identify the most vital places for life on earth

World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas

Thanks again to everyone who attended the recent blitz at Whitewater Lake, a stirring effort by all volunteers. In total 26 people made the journey to the southwest for this blitz, a record for the program. There are a couple of excellent articles published about the blitz and rather than write our own report, take a look at the links below:

CBC report on Whitewater Lake IBA blitz by Bryce Hoye

Nature Manitoba newsletter piece by Lynsay Perkins

So for the results. A special guest appearance by Nature Manitoba’s very own Deanna Dodgson produced a list of some of the butterflies and dragonflies of Whitewater. Being August rather than June or July, the total number of species was fewer than one might expect. However, it is great to highlight the fact that Whitewater Lake is a great place for other wildlife not just birds. Here is the list:

 

In addition a few mammals were spotted out and about around the lake

And to the birds. Here is a quick summary of the totals:

Group of Birds	Totals
Blackbirds	6943
Cormorants and Pelicans	1971
Grebes	3690
Gulls and terns	4082
Long-legged Wader	495
Rails	6076
Raptor	118
Shorebird	11898
Swallows	24618
Waterfowl	19409
All other birds	1391
TOTAL	80691

The prize for the most unusual sighting of the day goes to Garry, John and Deanna and this Common Nighthawk found sitting on the railway line.

As to be expected, there were plenty of shorebirds, something we will return to shortly. Also seen were a number of songbirds including this Le Conte’s Sparrow:

Here are the main highlights of the blitz

Swallows

Overall, almost 25,000 swallows were counted, a phenomenal number. Concentrations along some the powerlines were so high that volunteers had to estimate the number per metre then calculate the length of resting birds. A novel approach to bird monitoring! The large concentrations are indicative of gathering prior to migration.

Blackbirds

Another group of birds gathering in large concentrations ahead of migrating were the blackbirds. Up to 1000 Yellow-headed Blackbirds were counted in a single flock, an incredibly high number.

Raptors

The high concentrations of songbirds probably attracted a large number of raptors to Whitewater Lake. In total there were 118 individuals representing 9 species. The highlights were the Prairie Falcon and Peregrine Falcon in the eastern section of the lake.

Waterfowl

18 species were counted including a single American Black Duck and 3 Snow Goose. Surprisingly Mallards and Blue-winged Teals were the most numerous.

Long-legged Waders

Given the recent colonisation of Whitewater Lake and southern Manitoba by White-faced Ibis, the total number of 323 was quite staggering. Whitewater Lake has always been known as a great place for this group of birds. Check out the CBC article for a cracking photo of an American Bittern with a salamander taken by Bryce Hoye.

Pelicans and Cormorants

Manitoba is one of the most important areas for American White Pelicans. We counted 1691 individuals. This does not represent a breeding population but a large concentration of migratory pelicans. The total is just under 1% of the global total for this species, a really impressive number.

Grebes

Clark’s Grebe, a species more likely to be encountered south and west of Manitoba, was recorded. However this was dwarfed by the incredible number of Western Grebes, 2080. This concentration of Western Grebes is greater than the 1% global population for this species and is thus a trigger species for this IBA.

Shorebirds

In total we counted 29 species of shorebird. Of these species, we only encountered one each of Dunlin, Ruddy Turnstone and Whimbrel. The most abundant shorebird was the American Avocet with 3279 individuals counted, mostly along the eastern shore. The 7 Buff-breasted Sandpipers were a wee bit disappointing considering more were reported the previous week. In fact it was likely that there had been some migration of shorebirds during the course of the previous week.

The Black-necked Stilt were a Manitoba bonus for 2016, a rare breeder in this province. These birds were to be found at a location in the west of Whitewater.

The big news refers to the dowitchers and Pectoral Sandpipers. For both Short-billed Dowitcher and Pectoral Sandpiper it seems that we counted globally significant concentrations, i.e. more than 1% of the global numbers. Due to difficulty distinguishing between Short-billed and Long-billed Dowitcher, it is likely that there were also globally important concentrations of the latter species.

Here is the total numbers:

SPECIES	TOTAL
Snow Goose	3
Canada Goose	1061
Cackling/Canada Goose	11
Gadwall	1016
American Wigeon	107
American Black Duck	1
Mallard	5842
Blue-winged Teal	3972
Northern Shoveler	1528
Northern Pintail	1888
Green-winged Teal	240
dabbling duck sp.	400
Canvasback	294
Redhead	59
Ring-necked Duck	39
Lesser Scaup	8
Bufflehead	9
Common Goldeneye	2
Hooded Merganser	5
Ruddy Duck	1114
duck sp.	1810
Gray Partridge	6
Pied-billed Grebe	86
Red-necked Grebe	1
Eared Grebe	1520
Western Grebe	2080
Clark’s Grebe	3
Double-crested Cormorant	280
American White Pelican	1691
American Bittern	11
Great Blue Heron	31
Great Egret	87
Cattle Egret	18
Black-crowned Night-Heron	25
White-faced Ibis	323
Turkey Vulture	1
Northern Harrier	21
Bald Eagle	10
Swainson’s Hawk	26
Red-tailed Hawk	36
Virginia Rail	6
Sora	31
American Coot (Red-shielded)	6039
Black-necked Stilt	4
American Avocet	3279
Black-bellied Plover	28
American Golden-Plover	2
Semipalmated Plover	254
Killdeer	325
Upland Sandpiper	9
Whimbrel	1
Hudsonian Godwit	6
Marbled Godwit	117
Ruddy Turnstone	1
Stilt Sandpiper	233
Sanderling	2
Dunlin	1
Baird’s Sandpiper	34
Least Sandpiper	96
White-rumped Sandpiper	8
Buff-breasted Sandpiper	7
Pectoral Sandpiper	629
Semipalmated Sandpiper	185
peep sp.	22
Short-billed Dowitcher	1594
Long-billed Dowitcher	1012
Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitcher	2774
Wilson’s Snipe	57
Wilson’s Phalarope	146
Red-necked Phalarope	81
Spotted Sandpiper	41
Solitary Sandpiper	5
Greater Yellowlegs	557
Willet	169
Lesser Yellowlegs	214
Greater/Lesser Yellowlegs	5
Bonaparte’s Gull	2
Franklin’s Gull	710
Ring-billed Gull	1280
California Gull	5
Herring Gull (American)	2
Caspian Tern	1
Black Tern	1886
Common Tern	14
Forster’s Tern	182
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)	127
Mourning Dove	201
Common Nighthawk	1
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted)	15
American Kestrel	14
Merlin	8
Peregrine Falcon	1
Prairie Falcon	1
Least Flycatcher	1
Empidonax sp.	1
Eastern Phoebe	3
Western Kingbird	70
Eastern Kingbird	192
Warbling Vireo	25
Black-billed Magpie	8
American Crow	28
Common Raven	21
Horned Lark	33
Purple Martin	26
Tree Swallow	3965
Bank Swallow	18827
Barn Swallow	771
Cliff Swallow	443
swallow sp.	586
Black-capped Chickadee	1
House Wren	4
Sedge Wren	24
Marsh Wren	45
American Robin	23
Gray Catbird	3
European Starling	45
Sprague’s Pipit	1
Cedar Waxwing	10
Common Yellowthroat	9
Yellow Warbler	20
Le Conte’s Sparrow	5
Chipping Sparrow	2
Clay-colored Sparrow	10
Vesper Sparrow	13
Savannah Sparrow	82
Song Sparrow	89
Swamp Sparrow	2
sparrow sp.	100
Bobolink	15
Red-winged Blackbird	1751
Western Meadowlark	32
Yellow-headed Blackbird	3802
Brewer’s Blackbird	226
Common Grackle	543
Brown-headed Cowbird	44
Orchard Oriole	4
Baltimore Oriole	6
blackbird sp.	520
American Goldfinch	86
House Sparrow	80
TOTAL	80691

Finally, thank to all our volunteers, in my particular order:

Colin Blyth and Gillian Richards (Caretakers), Cal Cuthbert, Gord Ogilvie, Erica Alex, Jancice Madill, Bryce Hoye (CBC), Dave Warrenchuk (Nature Manitoba video), Lynsay Perkins (Nature Manitoba Communications), Emily McIntosh, Jo Swartz, Betsy Thorsteinson, Garry Budyk, John Weier, Deanna Dodgson, Katharine Schulz, Donna Martin, Linda Curtis, Luc Blanchette, Bill Rideout, Glennis Lewis, Linda Boys, Louanne Reid and Bonnie Chartier.